Locked in, as we are now,
I notice the small things:
what is at the back of the fridge? why is this child silent?
I don’t fight to make the space fit,
I expand and contract in the right places,
I am used to adapting to what is required of me.
And what is required now?
So much less.
I am needed here
and nowhere else.
I am off the hook.
No longer flailing,
trying to do everything,
failing.
Time has stopped.
I dream through the days.
Locked down, what I have locked up
seeps out,
through the cracks in the pane of glass I have held,
fists tightly clenched,
between me and myself.
The season turns from spring to summer.
The sun goes down
and rises again.
I am allowed to feel at last.
I attend to myself.
The world is locked out.
There is only this space, home,
with the door securely fastened.
Naomi Hutchings
