I can no longer stroke the warm, worn stonework
On my walk to work through St. John’s churchyard.
Once Loddiges market gardens of rhubarb and rhododendron
The tower’s clock frozen in time for 400 years
Now my only way by paths defined by stake and tape
The snoring, sleeping early morning homeless
Who used to shelter in the church’s vaulted porches
Pushed out of Hackney to disinfected hotels
Waking bewildered to breakfasts of dry toast
Covid cleansed onto strange streets
Risk must be kept away from the latte chatterati
In the Narrow Way the pound shop closed for bargains
No butchers or bakers or Covid mask makers
Instead 2 metre blue pavement markings
Snaking round the food bank queue
Gives the illusion of protection from infection
To poor people forced to queue to survive
The Law Centre’s empty, but works off site, on line
To stop an elderly disabled woman being evicted
To help a child from Calais woods join his brother here
To reverse wrong sanctioning from benefit
To stop time ticking, life slipping away
In our frightened world of C19.