In the deserted aisles of the bus I
Read the question I can never finish
In every masked face, and so vainly try 
To ask it no more. In our unmeeting
Eyes it cuts like razor-blades. 'Are you my
Angel of -' 'Do not use the word!'

The internalised voice of my mother
Cuts it off each time, but cannot kill it.
From its shrugged-off ring surges the other
Not-mystery of the day. The bonjour
Leaden and hostile, of the mom-cashier
Whose son may - 'Do not use the word!' 

Is that what every beep of the scanner
For each cabbage and tissue roll asks her?
'Am I your -' 'Do not use the word!'
                        

We are at war. Knit me thunder, o skies
To meet the elusive, invisible
Foe that slays before us our dearest ties.
Comradeless soldiers, we fight with memes
What we understand too ill and too well.

The toll of contagion is double-pronged
Dread filling a mother’s heart at the warmth
Of her baby's hand on her finger. Wronged,
And knowing it, the little one squirms, weeps,
Waits nearly in vain to be picked up.

The toll of contagion is three hands stretched
Out to catch an old lady’s tin of fish
Rolling off a wheelchair, hands that are checked
By sudden shudders. The tin clinks, clatters
Waits nearly in vain to be picked up.

We are at war. A war of staying home,
Of doing nothing. Of dreams turned nightmares,
Of craving the oft-deplored. So we comb
Each new day for tortuous ways to say
What we understand too ill and too well.
                        

Past the candle-sputter smothered in pain,
Past the sea-losing shells wrenched from the sand
Dwells Silence

Silence breathes life into music,
Potence into dormant evil;
Pours healing into bodies sick
With the glut from a teeming skull.

Silence, bind me. Silence, seal me
Within your sacred halls with blest souls decked

Past the whistling hush of scythe-steel on grain,
Past the exultant crunch of the last bite
Dwells Silence

Silence claws an oxygen-debt
Into the laughter of the world,
Spreads its still-growing silken net
Over joyous wings there unfurled

Silence, find me. Silence, heal me
With your prayers that to heaven speed unchecked