'All Lowries Now'

All Lowries now

At any one time,
the number of people out of their shelters
is roughly the same
as the headcount of medieval England.

In the local park,
mutedness has joined the squirrels and birds,
roosting, quicksilvering round the trees.
Distance races itself,
makes the sound of balls being kicked
way up to the local heavens.
All that's on show are figures
whom fearfulness has robbed of dimension:
living sticks pretending to be
a child's rushed drawing on a final page.
Some walk bent.
Others throw things
for tiny horizontals with dot-feet
to scamper and retrieve.
Here and there a stick or two
is saddle-borne,
keeps clear of grass or waystone 
on pert little circles.

All is this:
humanity, assured for so long
that it was the scheme of things,
now a rash of curlicues
where scheme-sections meet,
arrayed so you can't see the join.

19.05.20