CORONAVIRUS BAG (PART I) My woven plastic bag was an impulse buy last year in Europe– how fairy-tale exotic that sounds in these lockdown times. Bright yellow, decorated with cheerful graphic flowers, birds and insects– and the logo, of course, written in

CORONAVIRUS BAG
(PART I)

My woven plastic bag was an impulse buy
last year in Europe–
how fairy-tale exotic that sounds
in these lockdown times.
Bright yellow, decorated with cheerful
graphic flowers, birds and insects–
and the logo, of course,
written in French, the clincher
for me to buy. Just
a euro or two–why not, Madame?
And sturdy strappy handles. Yep.

Back home it soon became a useful souvenir,
carrying the phones and water bottle
round the garden, sitting on the pool edge;
indispensable, really.

Then my bag seemed incongruous
as the bushfire summer unfolded
in all its apocalyptic horror,
though it shielded phones
and shucked off clothes
from several downpours
which fingered their wet way inside
what now seemed a fragile home.
We joined the insurance phone queue.

Now the dragon-mouthed winds
from round the globe brought
not red dust and burnt leaves
from our country’s heart
but the silent covid killer
floating from the breath of–
who knows who?

Obediently we began withdrawing
from those we loved and those we hardly knew.
But finally came the phone call to tell us
an assessor would come to pronounce
upon our growing patches of mould
growing more florid by the day
above our dining table.

At last! I thought as I opened the door one morning
to burly strangers in hi-vis jackets.
And then I paused and sneezed. And sneezed again.
‘Hay fever!’ I choked out between the spasms.
‘Asthma. All this mould!’ My eyes were streaming.

In retrospect, I’d have done the same.

As soon as my husband came to squire them round
and I escaped outside for my morning swim,
I heard their truck start up and off they sped.