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POETRY IN THE PLAGUE YEAR

Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020

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Cathy Wilson
Bristol, UK

 

Cathy Wilson lives in Bristol, where she writes and teaches poetry part-time. Her first career was in ecology, which continues to inspire her writing. Cathy has contributed to several locally produced anthologies: most recently Underwater Haiku (FIRE Lab, Swansea University) and Inking Bitterns (Gert Macky).


Date poem was written or completed: 6th June 2020


How would you describe your dry cough?

 

A wanton desert airstream: Calima, Simoom

or the forced evacuation

of a bittern’s boom?

 

Insidious reed-rustle, susurration of membrane

or aeolian harp moan

with windpipe for strings?

 

Staccato exhaust catch in-the-throat

or stag’s rut rumble

gutteral grunt?

 

Sandpaper rasp on rusted latch

or snow-shovel grate

over salted gravel?

 

Dusty eruction in a choked chimney stack

or coal-shale shift

in a disused adit?

 

Explosion of air in a forgotten boiler

or full throttle death-rattle ...