Soap
I cup the bar of soap and pray:
happy birthday,
happy birthday.
The bar is trenchant in my palm,
a transcendental weight to calm
my terror like a psalm.
One lather of White Lotus.
Our shield against the virus.
Our lance to counter loss.
I sense the malice of the stain
to drown your lungs
with sticky rain.
I hear the tickle in your throat
begin to roar,
begin to bloat.
I scour my wrists and feel the scald.
I fear your masked
convulsions in the ward.
For now, we bicker and we cope.
For now, we scrub our nerves with soap.
The Swerve
It starts with a shrug,
a smile,
the faintest swerve –
this stark,
understood,
polarising of bodies.
One sheepish look
masks sly
calculation –
four, three, two –
tensions crackle,
bones sway
and slow,
step a gallant,
embarrassed
elsewhere.
On every path,
a clown-footed
wide-wobble
waltz of preening
contaminators,
splutter-storm
super-spreading
snot-bombers,
all in dry
‘Spirit of the Blitz’
pantomime drollery.
So we swerve,
doff selves,
‘stay safe’,
dance off in our sweet distances,
coffins of personal
space.
Locust
There is no fire but locust.
The song ricochets, wall to wall,
origin, invisible.
One constant, sharp,
bone-squall
of panic. Prophesy.
The world’s batteries are running flat,
spitting treacle.
They’ve been burning out for years –
with the tiny, operatic death-cries
of devices that just
call and call.
I’m sick of the stillness, the beeping.
I weep like Saul,
plagued by a spirit, harsh and small –
and this is how all kingdoms fall.
There is no fire. There is no war.
There is no mind but locust.
