THAT TIME REMEMBERED
Something about duty, about going
into the sun
As if it was rare; something about
not enough
Of basic things, too much
information;
A recollection of locks, distance, and
crowds
In parks as if they were safer. A
sense the young
Were careless, indifferent, as they
always are;
The old preparing for what they
knew happens;
A time of waiting, as if the air
raid sirens
Had just begun, but the shelters
hadn’t yet
Flung open. Something else,
connected to being
Apart, a decision we made to come
together,
A grander union, after division
bells, local anger;
Seriousness at a level you could
hear in a stadium,
But they were shut. The image of
someone holding
A pint glass, laughing at the
figures on the telly;
Stocking up on boxed sets, brown rice,
macaroni;
Wondering if the straps of your
mask were right;
That clutching in the chest like
holding on
To your last belongings; a gust of
fight or flight.
More dying than had to, but that’s
politics,
A retired nurse leaning over with
exhausted fear,
Back for a final act of compromised
immunity;
The blue ventilator wheezing, or
was that her?
Funerals without mourners, that enclosing
year.
22 March, 2020, London
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