The Firefighters

an experience of Covid 19

What was the first spark?
A careless touch,
A cough,
An inhalation - wrong place, wrong time…

A forest fire virus
Rages
Rampages through me.

I burn.

Into this inferno
I send out 
My Firefighters.
I feel them
Running through my veins
To the many firelines
Under attack.

This fire,
Malevolent, cunning, wanton,
Seeking always to get 
A leap ahead;
Another symptom, another organ, limb
Attacked.
Seeking always
In its reckless burning
To consume Me.

My Firefighters
Dig firebreaks,
Battle.
I send supplies -
Water, water, water,
Paracetamol, juice
Cereal, soup, pasta, chocolate
Sleep, sleep, sleep
And repeat.
I try to keep their strength up.

At times,
I sense 
My exhausted brigades,
Wiping away sweat, smuts and smoke,
The strains of combat.
And then they go again
Valiant defenders to the death.

Anxious to be doing something
I ask them
“How can I help?”
Their reply is always
“Rest”
“Get out of the way”
“Let us do our job”

So I do as I am told.
And realise in that surrender time,
For the first time,
In such a long lifetime,

That I love,
Am in awe
Of this little body of mine.
Its bravery
Its stubborn tenacity
Its “Not this time!” 
Its “Not yet!”
To age, infirmity, infection.

I rest.
I encourage my Firefighters.
I hug my miraculous body
I stroke my own arm
Squeeze a shoulder
Whisper
“Keep going!”
“Please don’t give up!”

If I could
I would kiss my own cheek in tender gratitude.

My Firefighter antibodies
Lift their chins
Polish their helmets
Shoulder their equipment
Remember their training
Head for the firelines yet again.
And do their job.

Copyright Tina Towey 2022

Exercise Time

My life is going pear-shaped,
Like my body.
Or is it an apple?

The expanding,
Descending
Bosom
Creeping like a glacier
To meet the rising tide
Of abdomen,
As I swell towards
A ripe old age.

The consequences of
The desk job,
The drive to work and back,
The evenings and weekends
Of To Do lists,
Where priorities of fitness
Are firmly rooted at the bottom,
Never to be ticked off.

It is the cost too,
Money and time.
I am bereft of both.
So the gym fees are cancelled.

Yet the time I spent there
Disappears
Before I can reassign it
To walks and home-based exercise.
I have no time to timetable
My time!

Or so it appears.
The spare hours fray away
And unravel in the late evenings,
When I am wound up and weary
Beyond thought or action.
So I watch Sky, not sky.

I try to move those hours
Elsewhere in my day.
I twiddle them,
But it is all
A Rubik’s cube;
The faces will not
Line up for me

And I am out of patience
With my time.

copyright Tina Towey 2008