Lockdown

We amble around the garden each morning, 

thankful the weather remains fine, 

like convicts in an exercise yard, 

pausing to stare at the old wall

as if it were the reason

for our liberty being restricted,

we show no inclination to escape.

As with most prisons 

there is much work to do,

two huge bags of gravel to shift

so, I set to it, a slower version

of Cool Hand Luke,

cursing as I scrape my knuckles

on the narrow gatepost

with each barrowload.

The bags when empty make

a cheap weed-control membrane

although their deconstruction is arduous,

I surmise the opposite of sewing mailbags

and am minded to think, whether the lags 

still do this to earn their snout.

An afternoon weeding the raised beds 

I am calmly monastic, another self-incarceration

at peace in that full-belly manner

following a satisfying lunch.

an innocent self-isolating lifer

resigned to measure my sentence

in the warm quarantine sunshine.

*

© Graham Sherwood 05/2020