The Children of Coronavirus
Pharoah, take these keys
none of us are to leave
while the plague passes over.
Pharoah, we all shrugged
at the plastic–infested seas
and the algae blooms on ponds.
While insects vanished and
species went extinct,
we ate what was left.
Pharoah, take these keys.
No swarm of locusts, these
are microscopic, unseen
infecting religious assemblies
family gatherings, friendly
conversations, hugs.
None of us are to leave
while this plague takes the last-born.
Here, Pharaoh, our sanitised keys.
Ruth Aylett teaches and researches computing in Edinburgh. She has published widely in magazines – including The North, Prole, Interpreter’s House, Agenda, Envoi, Southbank Poetry – and in a large number of anthologies, including Scotia Extremis and Umbrellas of Edinburgh. She jointly authored the 2016 pamphlet Handfast (Mother’s Milk) and her first single-author pamphlet, Pretty in Pink (4Word), is due out in 2021. For more see http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~ruth/writing.html
