Poem: Lockdown Sestina
Neil Fulwood

Normality has come to
an impasse. The world shrinks
to a small web of streets,
everyday life to these
four walls. Everything
beyond the window is empty.

Empty streets, cars empty
of passengers. Buses, too:
with everything
closed down, travel shrinks
to supermarket trips. Those
bustling city streets

are silent now. Streets
grim with shutters, empty
windows. How many of these
places will reopen, and to
what custom? Income shrinks
across the board; everything

looks bleak. Everything
seems surreal, streets
not even gusted with the shrink-
wrappings of litter, empty
premises hung with signs to
the effect of “these

are temporary measures”. These
measures might not be. Everything
depends on those to
whom the man on the street
is expendable: the empty-
hearted politicians who shrink

from responsibility, who shrink
into the bluster of these
post-truth times. Empty
of empathy, they forget: everything
is microcosm. These are streets
the privileged don’t belong to.

Everything shrinks
to these
empty streets.

 

Photo Credit: Nottinghamshire Live 
Neil Fulwood

Neil Fulwood

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, where he still lives and works. He has two poetry collections with Shoestring Press: No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. He also co-edited the Alan Sillitoe tribute volume, More Raw Material.

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