Everyday Hero

he doesn’t need to wear a cape

to show that he’s saving lives

with every shift he takes,

every moment he labors

over bodies ailing,

people still suffering

there were days he thought

it could not possibly get worse,

but days became tolls of lives

forever lost to sickness

every ache, every rattle,

every listless moment

watching a heart monitor

slowly zig-zag up and down

better days would come, he knew,

but when was the question—

as hours built upon hours

and lives trickled away

“doing his job” wasn’t enough—

so he held his patients’ hands

and whispered that he was there,

no matter what would come

today he remembers a year of strife,

when science was questioned

and masks were debated,

but he realizes now the cost

of every breath, each precious,

because he knows what was lost