TRACK AND TRACE

Footfall

echoes down our unlit alley,

like a signal followed.

Uploading from your pocket,

an unheard blip,

blip, bleeping of barcode.

Contact:

an unknown voice recites

their script. Quarantine.

You will be notified

if your status changes.

A swab may be required.

Unseen,

the scrunching of gravel.

Your partial field of view:

a white van retreats

from the corner of one eye,

its exhaust spluttering.

Alert,

controlled, but double-blind

to false result - not yours -

take the test next door.

Tap on your neighbour’s window,

bookmark their location.

 

v. 2020

 

Poetry and Covid project 

OUTSIDE WITHIN

 

In sanctuary of an unlatched porch

I’ve laid my cycle down.

The door is thick-strong oak:  

long hinges brace nail-studded beams,

an iron ring for handle.

I test the turn of it.

But, bolted against contagion,

there’s no communion to be had:

the dancing pools of stained-glass light

unreachable within.

 

Back home yet looking out,

we step around ourselves, measure

the degrees of separation –

two-metre arms outstretched.

Blessed are those with wings:

a far-wandering Brimstone settles,

briefly matches the budding leaves.

First of the year, it knows

the secret of distance:

that it’s how we become grown-up.

iv. 2020

'CoronaVerses' - Portsmouth Poetry Competition, winner