We are in awe of Richmond-area poet Kim Drew Wright, a courageous woman who is battling cancer, an amazing mom, and a social justice advocate—a woman who keeps fighting in the face of trauma upon trauma. We’re honored that Kim has shared her poetry and her unique perspective of the pandemic with our readers. It’s so important that we protect the health of the most vulnerable members of our society, and as we mask up, we’re thinking of Kim. We’re also just ridiculously impressed with her bravery, spunk, and ability to cut us to the core with her poetry.

Zombie America

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

 for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I’m freaked out that I’m not more

freaked out. Half-mast flags mar

the scene from my hospital bed.

One hundred thousand dead approaching

past caged brown babies, half-constructed walls,

and simple condonation of grabbing by the – insert

presidential term for female here.

It’s the millionth day of May

and I wish Fauci could unmask our cure,

use wizardry to make COVID magically disappear. Although,

I’ve learned buried festering never dies and how to see red

flags. America’s sickness lingers like zombie fires beneath

Arctic ice, nicknamed by scientists because a premature melt gives them breath

again. My sutured breast seeps orange while infectious

disease doctors wait for germs to grow in cultures.

Never occurred to me before 2016 that America might not break

free of tyranny, shed her past. Another knee to neck. Instead

of disinfectant injections for spongy lungs,

how about a scrub-free brain cleanser to expunge

these past three years? Gods divided under a Fox News Nation. I believe the zombie

apocalypse already occurred and we survivors are screwed. What can you

do? Sometimes justice is an endless search of blur

while they come at you in a slow, stupid

lumber with dead, dead eyes – crumbling

arms outreached as if in embrace.

Like on that show The Walking Dead,

I don’t want to believe She’ll turn, but everything

tells me that’s what happens when She’s dead.

This poem was originally published on MikeMaggio.Net as part of the first iteration of the COVID Poetry and Art Project. Read the original post here.

Chatting with Kim

Can you tell us a little about this poem and how you came to create it? How has the current crisis (or crises) influenced your art?

Just two months into the COVID pandemic in America and time had already lost its reliability, while folks stayed home and binged Netflix for something other than mind-blowing projected death counts. Each day of the previous three years of the Trump administration seemed like watching a dystopian movie playing out in real time on Twitter and the 24-hour news channels, and reality seemed to blur. I had been going through my own personal tragedy with a sunshine daughter who drastically became ill with PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) and my own advanced breast cancer diagnosis and treatments. Four days before George Floyd's murder, I had surgery because of an infection in my chest due to complications. I spent five days on IV antibiotics and the loneliness of the hospital during COVID times, with strict no-visitor policies, was excruciating. When I got out, I visited the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in downtown Richmond. It had become the focal point in our town for the Black Lives Matter movement and a memorial to lives lost. The chunk of cement and metal, now splattered with graffiti, had morphed into a conversation between America’s past, present, and future. Folks in graduation garb took photos. A man played a saxophone. A little blonde girl bent to lay flower. A woman held a baby in one arm and a BLM poster in the other. In that moment, it felt like a testament to pain and recovery. 

The past four years have been agony for me personally, creating a connection between my own personal pain and that of a struggling nation. The pandemic added another whole layer of pain and isolation—the locked lid of a pressure cooker ensuring we boil in the mess we made and steam in it. I’ve wept for a country I thought I knew but did not. I’ve changed enough to recognize that while some things have gotten better over time, there has been much that has stayed the same and I never saw it, hidden just beneath the clear surface like the bizarre arctic zombie fires waiting for the perfect conditions to flare back to life. 

What role do you think the arts play in times of turmoil and uncertainty?

The arts are fundamentally about human connection and expressing ourselves—telling our stories. Especially in times of isolation and tragedy, whether they be overarching societal or personal, the arts help us stay sane by helping us realize we are not alone, and that each of us matters. That others hear and understand. Someone always cares. We count on stories to both free us from the pain of reality and ground us in the knowledge that unexpected struggles are universal.

What are you viewing/reading/watching/listening to these days?

In normal times, The Walking Dead might not have been a show I would binge, but, somehow, given the circumstances, it seemed appropriate for the times. Also, somewhat interestingly...for a long period after the trauma of my daughter's abrupt illness, all I could bear to read were accounts of people who experienced the Holocaust. Somehow, reading about their traumatic journeys helped me.

About the poet

Kim Drew Wright lives in North Chesterfield, Virginia. She is a wife, mother, and social activist who founded Liberal Women of Chesterfield County & Beyond. She is battling cancer and fights for awareness and medical advancement for children with PANS – Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome. Find her on Twitter: @kimdrewwright; Facebook: kimdrewrightauthorpage; and her website: https://www.kimdrewwright.com.

Read another beautiful poem of Kim’s, “How to Be a Mother Again” at Literary Mama. And also check out her kick-ass TED Talk, below!