When this is finally over
we will emerge – uncertain at first.
Unshaven, long-haired and tousled,
we will meet those who’ve
been screen-images or voices.
We’ll want to embrace them,
but will have to restrain those urges.
We shall weep for those whom
this wave has washed away.
We will promise ourselves
that things will be different,
even though – with time
we might disremember
that red-blotched screen,
those masked queues of shoppers,
and an island they dug up to
bury those who could not
afford to be buried.
It’s our voices and gestures
that we will need to trust,
as we to reach out to
embrace each other.
A vocabulary of sound,
motion and intimation.