Time, Gentlemen, Please

Lockdown : 

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream 

of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth

 by the tailor’s hearth in ye olde Eyam. 

Then couldn’t un-see the Boundary Stone, 

that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes, 

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine

 purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind 

the sorry story of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre, 

star-crossed lovers

on either side of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river 

till she came no longer.

Simon Armitage