Dave Bonta mixes prose and short haiku-like verses to reflect on grief during the COVID-19 pandemic. The prose begins with something trivial: a new Facebook "care" emoji that, to the speaker, looks less like comfort than like someone clutching a wound. That wry, uneasy observation sets the tone. Online sympathy feels thin next to what is actually happening.
The speaker then turns to the death toll, noting that American deaths have passed those of the Vietnam War. He distrusts the comparison, saying it makes human-made violence seem like a natural disaster. Because numbers numb us, he asks us to picture a stadium full of dead people or a clear-cut forest of stumps.
The two short verses bring the loss down to earth: a mosquito sheltering under an umbrella, and soil too wet to plant, with fresh graves. The mood is quiet, weary, and angry, with grief held in check by dry irony.