This thing has a sound.

It is the sound of distance: of unseen tyres of unknown trucks

rolling on a near-distant road; of half-heard words

spoken in gardens by close strangers that we know;

of listened-to whispers of winds in trees that we hear

for the first time in a long time, for our own time

filled our whole time all the time before now.

This thing has a smell.

Barbecued people, cooked in the sunshine,

eating at home on their own, making things,

baking bread that they read from a screen

how to do; garden flowers, scented, presented

to us like a gift, as though for the first time,

given the time to smell them that we always

never had before; the smell of your other,

your lover, never closer than now, nor for longer,

stronger together somehow.

This thing can be seen.

It is there in the spaces between us, the grace

that we give to each other in passing, walking

and shopping but not stopping to catch up

with anyone, or any thing. It is there in the look

from the old ones in masks as the deadly young

pass far too close. It is there in the unwalked paths

and emptied roads, in the full jetless skies

and the endless, unpeopled seas.

This thing can be touched.

Don’t.