The New Normal

Don’t make plans-

you can’t make plans

too much is uncertain

but you should learn to live with

the new normal.

Masks aren’t law

anymore

but you should definitely

maybe

think about wearing them

in all places,

most places,

or even some places.

Let’s not cower from this

he says

smugly-

the man with the mild symptoms

and the features of a bat

beams from the window of his

North London home.

He must have walked past the mural

of one hundred and thirty thousand hearts

and counting.

It’s the 2021 equivalent of saying

my granddad smoked fifty a day

and then lived

to the ripe old age of ninety-three,

so it can’t be all that bad for you,

or not as bad as they say.

Who’s ‘they’?

Who knows?

Get Covid and live longer!

Shake hands with them all

write your dissertation

from your parent’s sofa

summer school on Zoom

forget that your classmates (almost always)

have legs

or knees

or anything below their shoulders, really,

and three whole dimensions.