Bright warm sun

spacious meanderings between bodies

the Canada geese and another species

fly into the closed running track

In pairs heeding their own proximity

Whilst the humans adhere to instruction

or follow their own dictates

It is good to be out of the dust bowl

of the flat the builders left only a week ago.

Imagine, I made them tea and we laughed together.

The room is now clean and bright and upside down.

My daughter says “you’ll have weeks, months, to sort it out”

Silence and Radio 4 reigns now

the window is bright, all the books in boxes still,

my resolution to leave on the front wall

all that I did not reshelve undone

I did two Chi Gung sequences in the car park

the film set folk have left vacant.

The basketball court full with lithe young men

In a weeks-time that will be at an end

No planes across my balcony

No children screeching from the nursery.

Facetime has replaced face to face

And daughter braved her ending self-isolation

on Sunday to leave an orchid and echinacea on my doorstep

Beauty and protection,

We spoke across metric lines measured in air.

This Monday more alike a Sunday

in London than I’ve ever known

My hairdresser still open but I cannot breach the threshold

I squint into the sun through a too-long fringe, glad not to be in bed

At ‘elderly hour’ a Tesco worker gifts me

A French loaf he bought a few of for lunches

He’s just delivered rolls but had sent me to an empty shelf

The retail heroes go beyond their duties

They also serve who give away their bread.