I am grilling fish fingers,
as the world burns,
from a screen
I can to choose to turn off -   
but don’t -
because it carries on behind my eyes
until not seeing
burns too.

I am folding washing,
as bombs fall,
far away too close,
and putting it in drawers,
gently shut,
with rage and fear banked 
in my fingers,
itching my teeth. 

I am hoovering,
enjoying the blank roar,
the sucking thunder
that elsewhere I know,
is the sound of grief - 
making sure
to reach into all the corners. 

I am working,
as apocalypse creeps,
and I email -
What’s the deadline on this, please?
Typing,
through the slow unreality 
of too golden treacle.

I am playing with my children,
as others die,
drinking invisible tea with white knuckles -
careful not to spill,
carrying on, pretending 
and pretending -
and pretending,
in layers.

I am boiling pasta,
and explaining war,
in fusilli words
which taste wrong -
spirals of privileged lies,
promising safety
I don’t believe -
but at least I can get away with.

I am stacking the dishwasher
holding mundanity 
like precious china,
suddenly unfamiliar -
abruptly beautiful, 
alien 
and talisman,
slipping from my hands
as I try to keep it safe.

I am going through motions,
that keep the world turning,
in impotent, banal cycles -
in case stopping anything
stops everything -
wearing normal 
in desperate momentum,
an old tattered jumper
with new holes.

I am chopping onions,
embracing the pain
of inadequate tears -
shed 
for humble human detail,
imbalanced human cost -
for the ordinary continuing,
and ordinary lost.