legs

 I can’t seem get my legs to move

In the correct sequence

So as ineffectual as any Liberal,

I am standing aloof above

A contest between left and right.

Walking has become a problem

Requiring serious and detailed planning,

Long ago, I must have learned it,

Now, I’ve forgotten how

I ceased to be a quadruped

To become a waddling toddler instead,

In places along the long way that I’ve walked

I’ve lost this skill from time to time

To fall unbalanced, drugged, drunk.

Then I’ve re-righted

Brushing off embarrassing memories,

Until now, when I am a tripod at best.

Stick supported, as predicted

In the Sphinx’s riddle

I wince and moan, staggering around my home,

Wearing in an artificial new knee,

And while the ball and socket grinds,

Bone on bone,

In the leg that the surgeon left alone;

The walking me got up and strode away,

Leaving an old raspberry behind.

my precautionary principle

Arthritis and Coronavirus,

These twin demons sit on my shoulders,

Gibbering in my ears like malevolent monkeys:

‘Don’t go out, don’t go out, you can’t go out,

Your legs will give way,

As you attempt to board a bus,

Then you will lie grovelling in the gutter:

And even if you did manage to get on,

You would inhale infected droplets and die.’

But I decide to defy the demons

And pass my front door frontier.

I want to wander in all the everyday

That used to bore me,

I wish to see people ignore me.

And I will not come to harm

Because I will be prepared

Precautions will be taken

No detail will be spared.

I will check to see

That I have my keys,

Then I will bury a spare set in a strongbox,

In a place that only I know.

I will carry a phone with a charger

And a power pack linked to the solar panel

That I attached to the top of the crash helmet

Which I don in case of sudden meteor impacts

Or suddenly falling airliners.

I zip up my water and flameproof outer garments,

Clamber into steel toecapped safety boots

Strap on hardened steel greaves

to protect my shins and ankles.

I cover nose and mouth with a surgical mask,

Connected to the oxygen tank

That I tow behind me

In a specially adapted shopping trolley

I gaze out through polarized goggles.

Then plod a few yards

Before tripping over a cracked paving stone

To lie grovelling in the gutter.