The second most contagious thing in the world right now, after the new coronavirus, is the insight that ‘social distancing’, previously known as ‘staying at home’ and ‘stay the fxxx away from me, you creep’, may actually help to decelerate the spread of the virus by reducing the number of new cases and thus helping to prevent our health services from collapsing altogether.

We have the world at our fingertips, enabling us to communicate for (almost) free and in real time. We live in a world in which the convenience of food and goods delivery has begun to replace the hassle of actually going to a shop (not for me, though: I’m a dinosaur, thank you very much). The internet provides us with almost unlimited resources to receive and broadcast forms of entertainment and distraction, from the silly to the useful to the unbearably serious.

Yet, remarkably, we talk about…

standard intensive care unit (ICU) within a hospital courtesy of Norbert Kaiser under CC BY-SA 2.5 license

“The coronavirus pandemic is a world-changing event, like 9/11. There was a world before Covid-19. And there will be a world after Covid-19. But it won’t be the same.” Oliver Markus Malloy,What Fox News Doesn’t Want You To Know

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They’re heroes, you know, real heroes
Not the ones in capes and caps, No!
The ones in scrubs, masks, nursing clogs
Daily on extended shifts, exhausted
As fate would have it, often succumbing
And when not, still the concerns for
Possible transmission to family, to friends
To strangers along their commute, and
“I worry for my parents,” says one
On his steadfast mission, another
Fears for her unborn child, six months
pregnant, with rounded tummy she works
For her patients, for colleagues, for the
Greater good, while a president sets
A precedent for…

(for my mother, sister, brother, and father)

Air. Heir can’t be cured –
I’m bee farmer caught stealing.
Hospitality.

Swallows flit in the air –
Only the houndish-rain can cure me.
The don’t know regret.

The nature of green –
They don’t know the dishes are-waiting.
You keep telling me.

Hours pass in nothings –
Or home. Or harm. Only song.
The other side telling.

I said that just now –
My sister cut her hair. Narrative-repeated.
Looking through a lens.

I can’t leave the house –
Because I’m afraid that people are laughing (at me).
Branches reach for me.

I dream of healing –
But it’s just a mapped out taproot.
I saw a wo/man.

Called tongue slippage –
Blue night is coming for me.
Yonder it is dark.

Hoping for applause –
Wild seabirds don’t hope for that.
For sonnets, marriage.

My room with a view –
It’s…

Photo by Acharaporn Kamornboonyarush on Pexels.com

Mexico, 2014

Wendy Pratt 

It is like saying goodbye again.

This is the longest I’ve been away from her

since she was delivered like a hot brick

into my husband’s arms.

We are flying from four years

of investigating her death. I think

even the turquoise of the Caribbean

can’t bring me back from the tiredness.

But I calm to the white sand, the tiny shells, so similar,

so different to the ones on Filey bay. I watch

the diamond shadow of a sting ray, gliding gently in its world.

I climb the hot stone ruins of Tulum,

wade the warm sea, swim in cenote,

drink margaritas on the beach.

 

I make an offering to the Mayan Gods; have her name set

in Mayan silver, hieroglyphics on a piece of black stone,

and I wear it round my neck, watch it glitter as I swim in the perfect blue,

feeling guilty I can’t…

..light aircraft..

 

did i tell you a small plane flies over each day?

sometimes higher that the day before

i watch it
we all used to watch it
now
i watch it

so i fixed the phone
and found the message

and the past caught up with me
the circle turned again

i should feel a thing within
i do not

i stand and watch the plane

(really, oh really)

 

glad to hear the snow is melting there
and that you are getting out and about

all our resaurants and pubs have closed
and no more swimming for the family
a while
despite the chlorine

he will swim the rivers and the sea
he is bolder than me
it is colder for me

we moved forward yesterday
with a few steps backwards

things broke, things were mended
cleaned and tidied

we talked over the fence, the first
in reality this week

they looked older, both had sticks
and offered supplies if necessary

two dogs
grey whippet twelve years old
and a black mixed scruffy

i watched them walk on and went
back into the studio quietly
sat a while

the others went out in their cars
and i hope they had good reason

surprised at the number of days achieved
hope you will manage ok with things and stuff

(…