The Virus at my Window by David Tait

The street below me us is still firmly shut
apart from the realtor’s, for some reason,
and the fruit shop, with its oranges and dragon-fruit.

Everyone going past is wearing masks
and walking slowly, as though on tiptoe,
as though having nowhere to go.

It’s quiet too. The winter smog drifts like a sinister mist,
and the woman next door plays her new piano,
bought in a moment of quarantined boredom.

She gives it up and we hear the birds: pigeons
and sparrows – rare to hear them – and then
the distant mewling of an ambulance siren.

It’s heading this way, and everyone on the street
stops to watch it pass. It’s passing but it isn’t slowing down.
The people on the street sigh, then keep walking.