On Incarceration

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Now shackled by government edict.
Banned from life’s open air,
No more a future to predict,
No more a life I can share.

Sent to my room to protect me,
Locked in my cage like a bird,
Yesterday only a memory,
Tomorrow has now been deferred.

Those plans I had for tomorrow,
Expectations I’d promised to meet,
Turned into today’s plangent sorrow
As into my shell I retreat.

As Touch becomes a scabrous word,
And washing hands a must,
My world’s become absurd,
As I’ve become nonplussed.

 

Keep Away From Me

If I am going to quarantine
Myself, I’d like to know.
Tell me please, in confidence,
Where all of YOU will go.

‘Cos as I’m trying to be safe
I do not want to see
The likes of you and Josephine
Paying a call on me.

That would defeat my purpose
In shutting myself away;
Non-contact is the intention,
To keep the germs at bay.

You may say this is overkill,
But as I’m eighty-five,
I really wish a few more years
To keep myself alive.