Look, he said.

The past is a worship of 
ephemera

The future asks you to live for it.

Live for it, he thought
Staring from the sockets that windowed 
the reality to which he was subscribed

The reflection looked back but said nothing

Reflections don’t understand

Start now, he said
See, a line engraved under everything that once was

His reflection grimaced, gnashed it’s teeth
the mirror’s glass a cage to this beast

Optimism covers me
a charity shop coat
of memories

others’ success and
lives
already won

but it, ill fitting and
stained
is shrugged off

to be put
to one side

The world turned slowly to the
grandfather’s clock
each hour or half marked
by a chime, cake, or both
and tea
for today will always be Sunday
a time to discuss the
latest deaths
of those we once knew,
and the current wrongs of the world

Start as you mean to go on
they say

but surely

change is as good as a rest?

and anyway
today, I’m tired

Admire nature
Pick up stones, sticks
buckets of water from the sea

Drive for miles to look at the view
conveniently placed
by a cafe

serving nature’s best
chips
and ice cream

Leave footprints and
warm breath, but
take home memories

enough for a lifetime
or at least, until the
end of the day

What are you doing?

Not much. Sitting.
Oh

Yes?

I wrote a poem about feet

Feet?

Yes. Seemed like a

TREAT?

No. Too obvious. Just a way to avoid defeat.

If I was to squeeze
your foot
like a tube of toothpaste

the insides would come out
a podiatry pate
from the big toe

But
I wouldn’t clean my
teeth with it

the taste
of foot in mouth
being all wrong

The cat circling
mine and your legs
begs

Food, please

shouting with
eager purrs, and
then
a view of its tail

Tears return
as we all will
to the ocean

Look ahead, and
the future erases the now

in two hundred years
these words
and
the many that have
surrounded them

will be lost, memories only
to dead lovers
friends and acquaintances
a lifetime past and
forgotten

The normals in the
pound shop
hedge their bets with
masks over
mouths and
noses out, sniffing
the air for signs that
the virus has gone

True protection
the kind that satisfies
comes from
plastics and sugar
the bright colours of
diabetic and sweat-shop delights
distracting
until the world is put right
by discussions online