Wedged into the sofa cushions
Gazing at other people’s parroted opinions
Wasting precious moments on Twitter
My daughter asleep in my lap
Waiting to hear more news
From the hospital
Wondering if grandma
Will need brain surgery
As her Googled symptoms suggest
The paramedics were not optimistic
Though they thought it was just
Concussion at the last visit
Repeating the same tests
Hoping for a better outcome
Can we allow ourselves to believe in miracles?
Or will she, like grandad
Go downhill quickly
Seduced to eternal sleep
By a mundane global nightmare
Transmitted in a hospital corridor
After a fall.
Strange these parallel lives
It is barely a week
Since the last funeral
And already I fear
There may soon be another.
Will my employer be willing
To suspend their disbelief
In the cruelty of the Fates
And lend grudging credence to the notion
One family could be the seat
Of such frequent misfortune?
I cannot say
Only Time will tell
And I continue to offend
That elderly gentleman
Numbing my senses
Scrolling past the paltry nonsense
That passes for news
A political procurer of
Public opinion is protected
By his powerful protégé
After a very public breach of policy
Big whoop. Conservative tastes
Do not lend themselves to
Common causes. He’ll not swing
Unless someone else has something
Sleazier than he can sell
To buy themselves his job
Dead men’s shoes, don’t you know?
The anxiety mounts with each beep of the phone.
We are all waiting
Sick of this virus
And the dread
And the endless grind
Working from home
Trying to focus on the Big Picture
Alongside the minutiae
While kids run amuck in the background
Leap-frogging over the broken and unwanted objects
We can’t yet take to the tip
For a decent recycling
Attempts to home-school abandoned
In the face of reality
They are creating new patterns
In the junkyard of our
Once orderly home
While the pile of dirty clothes
Mounts ever higher
Overspilling the laundry basket.
We have an excuse
We have forgotten whose turn it is
To do chores
All days blurring together
In this strange world of lock-down
At first we were industrious
To a fault
Clearing the decks of any
Half-assed DIY projects
Every evening and weekend
Buying improbable shades
Of garden paint online
Two months in
It’s a matter of sheer chance
If we remember when to put
The bin out.
The phone vibrates with news
And as the hopeful message
Trickles down the airwaves
Past the sleep deprivation
Bypassing nostalgia tinged with fear
To sink slow, clawing relief
Into my foggy brain
I am alerted to a new sensation
The damp embrace of a child
Whose nap time has now
Exceeded their bladder control.
At once I am reminded
It must be a Tuesday.
Bugger.
The bin will have to wait another week.
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Katherine Shirley 