A Lockdown Poem from Georgia Louise Luckhurst

With the curtains open I wake with a mind as thin as broth,
Clear through like boiled bones. I spark a purpose of myself,
Rise to pour a glass of water, stand at the window
and watch the silent rabbits communicate
the carrying-on of their routine.
The night before I thought to watch a film
A friend had passed on. Handed to me wrapped
in the hope that I’d find something in it I hadn’t known
to look for. In these distant feats of knowledge I’m illuminated
by the diffraction of my soul. That some glint of me has sheen enough
to light an eighties movie, to say
hey this is something
you would like to see.

On Millionaire’s Row a man from six good feet away
spies me slow at his strange humanness. He opens his mouth
and I think murder and then he calls out morning! to me and the
redundant traffic lights. 
It’s noon, I want to say.
The leaves are redeemed from months of fainting melodrama.
The willow is yawning a mocking
close kiss into the desperate gape of the river.

I grew up in a place that wasn’t a town,
A town that boiled time
down to an aimless,
pallid broth. I took walks
to mete out minutes,
ran to pulp my bones,
festered like dust in my bed on afternoons
and let the naps carry me to dinner.
Any history we had was reconstituted soup.

And there were no rabbits, either.

Georgia Louise Luckhurst is a 21 year-old writer from Scotland, in her final year studying English at St Andrews. Her favourite poet changes every day but she is especially fond of e.e. cummings and Terrance Hayes.

If you want to read more, you can find her at @georgialouiseletters

We hope this brightened up quarantine and inspired your day! Stay safe. Stay inspired.