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

I’d like to assure you
my faithful public, that
I AM NOT DEAD

but

its hard to be certain
and anyway

only God
and doctors
can see inside