Soap Burns

(Love In A Time of Covid)

I turn to face the gurning visage of death,

Firing his darts down my back and left leg.

Entity incubates within my chest and groin,

Upper extremities consumed by

Delicious languor

Sensual stupor.

Gorging on hours slurred to wine glass sedation

Bottle uncorked every Friday night to steal

An oracular breath.

All hands upon deck,

All knees to the neck!

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe”

Ice-crevasse sweats at the witching hour

As you wake howling from sleep

Into bludgeoned fatigue

Without a top or bottom

A Beginning in search of an End

Jacob’s ladder stabbing your feet.

Town with the wind sucked out.

The centre cannot hold or else has gone AWOL

Abruptly popped dirigible

Pricked by absurdity’s hollow laugh

And all because one furry little mammal fell from its perch

In a market in far-off rising Cathay.

All hail Entropy!

Here I sit in my command module,

Off-white walls foaming their blizzard of nothing.

Shooting a crystal gun through temples  

Sterile, clean, privileged, white

Alone.

Unable to locate the off switch let alone press the ejector seat.

Inoculated against the germs

Imperial Leather and anti-bac our hand maiden’s tales

Each of us now facing our own private Gileads.

Here I sit scrubbing and a rub-a dub-tubbing

While they clappety-clap, bish, bosh and bang,

Awopbopaloobopalambamboom!

Hoary-throated, gammon-suckled, beating tin drums

Outside front porches

Freshly swabbed with vinegar

Every Thursday at 8.

Now is the spring of our smug self- content

Made glorious by this festering

Cut-price leg of Great British pork.