for Sarah

You have come back today
to a world that has changed utterly,
in how it behaves socially,
since you were away.

And here you are, casting a cold eye
on one who practices the new art
of keeping two metres apart,
before it’s time to say goodbye.

You have come back in sunlight, like a butterfly
who has opened her wings
to the thrill of natural blessings,
nobody needs to buy.

For the world about us is frailer
than it was, and learning what it is
to go on living with a virus,
like a real-life drama with no trailer.

But you are composed enough to smile at the way
you were locked up in a lockdown, and how
all the weirdness that is happening now,
didn’t seem so weird to a mind gone astray.

In the distance, a radio is turned on,
and Sinatra is singing, as only Sinatra can,
the best is yet to come.
‘And maybe it will,’ you say, ‘when this is done.’