The first weekend in spring 2020

People's Park on this bright Saturday morning.  

Feeds in our hands of crowds outside Asda as if Bowie was signing CDs  

or Ali was out of retirement and fighting in the tissue aisle  

and it was spring 2015.  

The park’s not empty but it is quiet.  

The grass will need mowing soon, maybe yesterday.  

The daffodils sit proud between brown and grey trunks of dark trees,  

as yellow as cheap custard.  

The children still run but they don’t shout.  

Defiance stares from the watery eyes and red faces of the old  

but they sit still in the middle of their benches, the only movement  

breadless ducks, the fountain in the middle of the grey pond.  

We distance. Families huddle. More adults per child.  

The wind is strong, comes in gusts, empty branches no defence.  

It nips and nibbles without affection, reddens and bleaches exposed fingers.  

The rose bushes are bare, the benches dark and damp.  

Even in the sunshine my feet are cold.