Power...

the power of health bureaucrats  
has never been more
greatly exercised
since the advent of the
pandemic in our
daily lives

Control...

governments have taken
full control
by which they can stop
us from freely partaking
in an outside stroll

Greed...

big phrama being granted
exclusive rights
to sell millions of jabs
world wide  
thereby excluding other
forms of treatment

oh yes power control and greed
in these recent times have become
the cardinal creed

Before, I couldn’t see you
I would write about your eyes
Your smile
Your hair
All cliche, all flat
I couldn’t write
How I tried
Now I see you...

I see a green mantis
I see your freckled patina in that photo with the perfect light
I see you engaging the waiter in conversation
I see your long limbs loosely crossed
Cradling your herbal tea and segmenting your orange
I see you

The soft nape of your neck is in my dreams

I see you swimming ahead in the river,
I see your joy in that, and remember me needing to turn back
I see us crouched on the railway sleeper,
The last of the sun crossing us
While the washing up waits
The beer dries on our lips
We sit looking back at your home

I see the young and sexless person you told me about
Your nose in a book on the family holiday

I see the flicker of self-doubt
the slow rising tear that doesn’t spill over
being all things,
mother, worker, friend, lover

I see all the things you are not
that I projected onto you
Now I see you

Nothing is moving tonight, the air is utterly still
A vacuum- it is the milkman’s hour but not even the static whizz of his battery disturbs us
Everything is steeped in silence, there are dusters in the ***** pipes
I open the window looking for a draft but even the street outside is flattened by it
It weighs all around, we are like dried leaves pressed between pages in a forgotten book
Where has everything gone?

I drift back to the edge of my dreams for a moment and in the corner my therapist sits- *****, grey and cold as death she watches. To her right is a tall walnut wardrobe, like the one in great grandma’s back room that held all the monsters as a child
Then its heavy weight suddenly lurches across the floor, a wrench and scrawl of noise then it tumbles in thunder and I jolt awake as it races up the stairs to my door
What is it?
Hiding under the silence
Now the house is hot and heavy as ever, and I open more windows
And reluctantly the air moves a little but still I can’t sleep