On Jeremy’s Departure and Quarantine
Jeremy’s gone, and still the sun is shining,
and around the corner, DJs play
the speakers out the window, silver linings,
songbird nestlings chatter through the day,
in allotments the courgettes are growing,
little shoots as green as emerald drops,
and at dawn, the cattle softly lowing,
and the farrows rooting through the slops.
Not all seeds are quickened every season,
some in silos, some burnt up in fires.
Ashes blow without a rhyme or reason,
laurels grace the heads of Tory liars -
when we finally smother in our beds,
ivy wreathes the graves of honoured dead.
Passover
How is this night unlike all other nights
when snuck in passages we go to pray?
The lace cloth, burnt egg brown and speckled white,
our worship in our rooms, all locked away,
the butcher's brisket wrapped and hurried home,
the matzo standing watch upon the shelves,
the candles lit for blessings made alone,
trembling in awe and fear, wrapped in ourselves.
How is this night unlike all other nights?
In prayer our voices rise, each in its part.
Next year together, hope with all our might,
next year in the Jerusalem of hearts,
but now the breaths of ventilators rush
to greet the souls all gathered in the hush.
Corona Requiem
From all angers, pulses confidential
on the monitors, and all the beeps,
pray to die within your blessed sleep,
all the bread and oranges essential,
all the wishes, sorries, thanks and hopes,
all appreciations, all applause,
all the sunbathers outside the laws,
all the empty easters, all the popes,
from all blessed angers, tombs that open
all the drowning gasps from underground,
in their mourning, gathering the sound
all the chanting vigils, voices broken
asking how they carry, torn and mangled,
empty sepulchres, from all their angers.
Margaret Corvid is a writer, and activist based in the South West of the UK. Her writing has also appeared in the Guardian, and Cosmopolitan. She writes on sex work, sexuality, gender, and many other labour issues.. Social media splash image from the Born Again Labor Museum.