Little Flames

Little flames are still erupting

Greedily licking their way into life

Anywhere

Taunting, trying, needing to spread

Smoke, screens

Everywhere

---

Little fires are still bursting

Our bubbles

Isolating

Extinguishing

Our trajectory, our plans

---

But science-tested-masked-up,

Public-invested-double-jabbed-up

We are still fighting

Riding parabolic waves of

Peaking panic

Troughs of calm

---

Three, now four Waves

lapping in and out of consciousness

Have maybe lost fright,

Have maybe lost plain sight?

Of firefighting in hospital hinterlands

---

For we are now playing

Down the levels

Elbow-bumping our way through cattle-run city corridors

Sipping our cocktails

---

For, we live and,

If we will, we still can

Find ourselves.

After all this

There are still green places

---

But we are so

Exhausted

by extinguishing

The last 16 months

Please

Still the flames

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-06/u-k-to-change-self-isolation-rules-for-those-with-double-jabs

---

Alison McIntosh

28 July 2021