For Anne E.



I shall jump straight into the thickest thick of it, when

she was and I was and we all were locked down. Curfew
fell. I had crept to my front gate and opened it and stared

both ways at the sudden obedience of no traffic. A shudder
of stillness as if a blow had landed and the pain was yet to

make itself known. And how the very stars became curious.
I did not set one foot beyond what was not forbidden, across

into the night, because if I did that who was there left to trust?
She lives five or six stones’ throw from me, under the same

moon. I could navigate the puzzle of streets that have slipped
into a new immensity of disuse, and tap on her study window.

She is close enough to me, but also, too far. So I spin a thread 
from my device, fling it out into the unresisting air. She catches

hold, soon we are talking with our hands, tapping out messages.
Then I hear him, that local guy in his revved-up car, approaching,

laying down his song of circle work, a solitary defiant delinquent
voice. Tonight he is doing no harm. I wouldn’t often like his thrust

and swagger, but tonight I let it go. We are all at the end of our rope.
He’s going over towards you — I tell her. Yes, there he is now — she

replies. Then — He’s heading back your way. Can you hear him yet?
And I can. I can hear him and his machine measuring out the distance

between us. If he only knew, if only he knew, that we listen out for him.