by Linnet Macintyre

It is still Tuesday

***

The light is coming in the window. Unidentified birds sing in the garden and the refrigerator hums. Everything has changed yet everything remains the same.

***

The church steeple points upward but the church doors are locked. The pews are empty and the priest’s robes are hanging in the vestry. His flock are in their homes waiting and waiting for the bells to ring.

***

I live in a city. The only sign of life I can see are in the branches of the trees, where the buds wait to blossom and a slight wind blows cold.

***

I memorise a poem. I feel like a child in a classroom and a person in an old folks home clinging to my short term memory. I also feel dancing around my room repeating, ‘we each took a pear, and ate, and were grateful’ is better than nothing.

***

We are in a period of slowness. The only thing that prevents stopping is a fear of death. Fear is everywhere as is death.

***

I walk past allotments in the morning sun. The daffodils are blooming, some are yellow, some are cream and some are double headed. There are dwarfed by the pale sliver green leaves of artichoke plants. They are new and they are healthy.

***

I take photographs on my walks. When I post them I think it is my way of saying I am here and I am alive.

***

I see the morning sun pierce the copper plate of a shop front. A small streak of burning light.

***

I take a flask of Genmaicha tea.  It tastes of toasted rice and is comforting. I drink it while sitting in the branches of an old tree. As I sit, the steam rises from the flask and I am still.

***

In the windows of a London brick house there is a rainbow. The outer rim is pink, the inner silver and in its centre is a dark arch like a tunnel. I try to focus on the colours not the tunnel.

.***

In this time of lockdown, two engineers have visited. I have endured Brexit discussions, survival tips, shaking of heads and hollow promises. The oven door is still broken.

***

I don’t understand anything about my new life. I crave space and waves and salted air and laughter and dance. I am sitting in a gigantic dial that goes from 0-5. I long for a 6 or 7.

***

Mike Tyson said, ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’ I leave that here.

***

Kinetic movement tumbles through word space. An orchestra warms up and plays. A new language is formed. The meaning is clear, the words unintelligible.

***

My inside is raw and angry. Boils grow in my throat. I look for them in a pool at low tide. The water is clear, the sea anemones livid.

***

I cross the train tracks, the wooden sleepers seep tar, the metal girders glisten. They lie between my childhood home and the sea. The train comes and goes 3 times a day. The timetable is inside me.

***

Dead bodies are piling up in hospitals and making their way to makeshift morgues. In cemeteries the wind blows through the desolate space and  invisible mourners lay floral wreaths on coffins.

***

I knock on locked shops windows and look at empty playgrounds. I queue quietly yet I yell at joggers and ask for space.

***

It is still Tuesday

Linnet Macintyre is studying for a part-time MA in Creative Writing at Brunel. She got here somewhat circuitously.