It’s Covid under microscope,
this sputnik stream assaulting us?
Or Christingle, church season’s treat,
red ribboned symbol, stuck with sweets?
Or sunset blanket cloaking sky,
mosquito ball rolls in with bites?
A brain scan with injected dye
and suspect cells which multiply?
Or science fiction fantasy,
strange bullets shot at uniforms?
Or window curtains, V&A,
designer print swings morning star?
Or Hockney, partner as he paints,
sharp petals on the sunflower crop?
I think it’s hedgehog on a roll,
half-buried, polystyrene box.
How can we see unless we look,
a steady moment in the fray,
and when a metaphor in play,
the whole wild world is in our eye.
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church with Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, most recently Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Parliament Literary Magazine, Poetry Potion, Grand Little Things, The Poet Magazine. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/