Are locksmiths key workers?

is the curve flattened yet?

is it flat as I understand flat to be?

will I feel any different?

and what about people who

had been cooped up for months

in tiny flats?

my father died the month before the lockdown

feels like a hundred years ago

that man

in a spring and summer of national mourning

what should we do?

let's plant a new arboretum of remembrance

with statues of nurses 

doctors 

delivery drivers

supermarket staff 

carers 

postal workers

my father

I'll lay a posy of daffodils at his feet

and dig my spade into the flinty mud 

of his settling grave

how much blame will the politicians

seek to allocate to others ?

all of it I imagine

they have not impressed

but then I have always been underwhelmed

by the privileged especially when in power

their inability to relate to the poor

to the everyday needs of everyday citizens

nothing changes just avenues

of revolving doors containing

grinning hyenas in morning suits

always pretending to give

impoverished people a chance

as they are further impoverishing them

please don’t forget these times

though they are concerning

though they are frightening

and likely to remain so for a time

though we lost many people on the way

don’t ever forget what happened

what some had to go through

don’t forget about us

don’t forget about me

and the key workers 

who became locksmiths

trying to free up the logjam

our lives had flowed into