0

      At least we don’t have to worry 

about condoms

She says, as we hold

bare hands in the bare aisle

of things   we fortunately do not need

       to add 

    to the overflowing basket 

we cannot ration

‘til the second check out 

– masked hypervigilance 

on our born-today faces,   

not knowing

which way to gasp

with the rice, guilt, 

    out-of-date biscuits

We rush the border to Pacífico, 

Our fourth-floor haven 

of sharp-edged tables, and central heating,

in scandalously 

    good health

4

All hands are on deck

says a veteran, leaning away from the mic

If only 

we had enough gloves

3

While hospitals build armies 

  of premature graduates,

and fodder, 

  that was never enrolled,

my ex-boss calls

to clarify 

a long-held existential suspicion

6

    Puckered fingers

scrub 

    at creeping rot of idle

azulejos, 

baldosas, 

and nooks for which we have no names,

nor bounty

in need of stowing

6

After combing 

    the brooms

dusting     the dustpans, 

I rinse, 

and wipe 

the trembling leaves 

     of city scum,

shift pots, and overwater

  until the circuit-breaker 

of applause

7

On the balcony, we share 

an even number 

of single beers

and reminisce, on ceiling cracks 

and lack of sun

and how, just yesterday it seemed

like we were really

    moving up in the world

10

The supermarket is too close

   I moan

but otherwise, I’m high on Sci-fi

this unbelievable 

and she who reaching further

always seems to find 

there is some

while outside, 

the drones come

15

My cuñada calls from another time zone

of single digit data, 

but still no baby formula 

Her colega calls from another time zone 

they have a strategy 

with number plates

13

We practice opening doors

with our non-preferred hands

18

In Lavapiés 

a bangladesí dies, after six days of calling

He was the owner 

of a restaurant

where I wonder   if we ever ate,

and if the refusal of a taxi

after the ambulance failed to show

had anything to do

with what the papers

claim it didn’t

21

A nest is suspended 

    halfway across the street

grey branches 

disappear against brickwork

The pigeons 

are queer, too

and are going 

    to make excellent dads

25

Fritanga, and other noxious gases

slink up the lightwell, 

infusing drying sheets,

  conjuring, not witches

but garlic loving abuelas

who cook 

as if to ward off

        a paranormal plague, 

as if they themselves

  were

      not   

the    

      ghosts 

27

In other neighbourhoods, 

the queue’s become a meeting point,

snaking around the block – 

cubed manzanas of appropriately distant friends

or those who desire 

a cigarette in the street 

assured 

by the reciprocated trust 

of authority

28

In Vallecas, expendable resources 

brave the metro, with certificates

we claim we’d kill for

And the queues 

are only queues,

slow-motion shoppers

in tracksuit pants, so little skin 

exposed

    only by the contents of their trolleys

as we wait for the checkout 

    in the disinfectant aisle 

where there used to be 

    dinosaur biscuits 

at knee height

31

The lines are bad 

and my phone

recommends  I       free         up             space

35

A blur is nesting on a chimney across the street

36

There is still a blur, nesting on the chimney across the street

She lends me her glasses,

and a parallel prehistory 

dawns

she’d have been the first one

  to be picked off the pack 

        Not like you’d survive,

without the contents of your bedside table

Not like we were ever cut out 

for capitalism, either

37

Smug in plastic

I test my long-distance focus

on the people 

under the bridge

Without ever having

looked before, ‘really’

the stacks 

       seem further apart now

the lonely 

             huddles

more

   dispersed

39

Inside, the walls

spill   curated 

clickbait feeds,

an insatiable doomsday bias, 

the exponential 

fission of tabs,

  and looking-glass 

home-school hacks

-1 

Remember Vallecas: 

our undulating footfalls

    on grassed-over dump, 

    now parkland

From this vantage,

      how we floated

and the sky 

was deep

with subterranean lights