Shopping in the time of Coronavirus


 
We snake round the supermarket block
— thirty strong on a mid-April afternoon.
Good to know that even amid a pandemic
the British know how to form a sensible queue.
 
I have already developed symptoms of
Proper Surgical Mask Envy.  Where on earth
do people get them? I wonder.  Amazon told me
it would take weeks. Most available got one star.
 
I spy with my little eye …  Something beginning
with ‘S’.  The church spire looms high over
the concrete lozenge of the backs of the shops.
It is quiet.  Still.  Birdsong not yet quite a cliché.
 
The woman two metres in front turns her face
upwards to the low sun streaming down
the goods-in drive.  She looks my way and
— slightly embarrassed — says Lovely.
 
Rosie Miles

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Rosie Miles would be pleased to hear them.