Glow Alexanders are legion in the hedgerow, girding my shrunken world with lime-green early sweetness; broken stalks leak tangy sap – Roman celery. The lacy heads are starting to seed, spikier now, and everything this shape – dandelion heads, thistles – anything that hooks and sticks, evokes our invisible enemy – magnified on every screen. An artist … More Sue Burge
NoShoulder to Cry On Ifell over yesterday. Lying there, on the crazy paving between the veg beds,with nobody to help me up, I had a little cry. It was just the shock. Nothing’sbroken…except my spirit. I didn’t say anything last night when you rang as Icould tell from your voice you were exhausted from another … More Valerie Griffin
Making dens My youngest came in and asked what I was doing. Den, I said. I’d crawled under the coffee table in my bedroom. Only my self-cut hair and an ankle swollen from homeschool PE escaped its bounds. You have to make it better than that, was his response. He returned with one of my … More Claire Dean
Batten Down The Hatches Block out the news; the multiplying. Zoom in. A whole world exists within this boundary: a school in the kitchen now, a pub in the front room, shops in the computer, friends on the phone. Husband commutes to the garden; children down the stairs. Unqualified, I tackle the curriculum. And together … More Nicola Ashbrook
Unprecedented The word ‘unprecedented’ plays on a loop. The TV screen morphs from supermarket queues to deserted landmarks. You are identified at risk. Alone and self-isolating, your front door has become a no man’s land, a barrier between you and normality. You open a window. The air smells different, fresh. The sky is no longer … More Rosalind Adam
100 Words Of Solitude 