Jesus and the Coronavirus - a poem by Caleb Mangum

Jesus & the Coronavirus

It all started when the NBA got cancelled
And the college tournament, and my trip to Greensboro, and this business is essential to me, and i miss my friends

It all started when I learned Coronavirus was just its hood name

It all started when I couldn’t turn NPR off and the news never got better and the numbers only got bigger and the time only got longer and I couldn’t keep my eyelid still and that’s real

shortness of breath and i thank God for my friends
It all started when zoom calls felt relieving. i hate zoom. I promise I won’t miss it.

It all started when I couldn’t stop writing in my head. and it all sounded the same. and it all sounded profane. and angry and where’s the hope in you, Christian?

asymptomatic and 3 feet turned to 6 apart and not under cuz the ground couldn’t hold em all

It started when Rudy Gobert got it

It all started when the schools all closed and sometimes the shepherd makes his sheep to lie down, and man i hate lying down

It all started when I learned what my friends really meant to me, that owned businesses, that felt what I feel, when they layed their people off, when they went to curbside only, when they shut their doors, when they asked Uncle Sam their enemy for money their god

It all started when Kobe Bryant died, and Covid wasn’t colloquial yet When my gym closed and for real i stopped caring

When I talked with Mike on Wednesday night and he told me it was just a weird flu and what’s the big deal? and i agreed and let’s make some memes and get back to life

It started when the NBA thing was the most obvious thing ever

Where’s this Jesus come in? My Jesus? Who i’ve always clung to? Or Is Jesus just the proper name I give to my ungrounded optimism?

I can’t think that. I can’t let myself...think that way. This hope I cling to with a capital J is my hospital ship. I’ll go down with this damn thing if i have to.

Man remember basketball?
Chest pain and It all started when my left hand was getting so much better. I’m sick of it now and it’s day like 6. I hate zoom and I miss you.

I feel like i’m gonna wake up one day, like i did when my aunt was dying. I feel like i’ve had to go through more things than i’ve warranted. I wasn’t known for fighting well though screens.

It all started when Italy passed China. What?

I learned something about myself I’d always suspected it was never just business

I’m not capable of just business

it’s why i don’t care about Williams Sonoma or anybody i can’t see who doesn’t even know where Telford is

I guess in some theoretical head-space i woulda said this is possible. Like i woulda said the multiverse is possible. Or the big bang theory or creation or me.

104 fever and uncertainty exhausts me
Jesus never looks hopeless like this.
Guess this virus still shows i have a long way to go. I didn’t ask for that either.

It started when i washed my hands everywhere and showered when i got home and sanitized and changed my clothes and sneezed in my elbow and kept my six feet and did laundry every day, and felt 0% safer and Mary ensured me i was risky and i figured if 100 people in the whole county have it, i must have it too

new confusion Man we long for something better
That mamba mentality, or Jesus, one of the two
i didn’t even call my best lead back today. I’d be insensitive to keep that meeting. cough Yeah there’s joy cough in movement Megan
It all started when I learned how life-sustaining ya’ll were to my humanity

Shelter in place
still we know to take heart; you’ve overcome the world. We know, take heart, you’ve overcome it all