Kate Jenkinson
This ship, made from glass and brick, sails daily.
The sailors navigate their email in tray
crafting pithy replies, whilst safely
hand-shaking new deals for bonus pay.
Their busyness increases, oblivious
to the multiplying risks across the seas
corona shrapnels, canon their perilous
path from ship to shore; a titanic disease
engulfs the world; we abandon our boats
we stay home; ring, ring of the office phone
chairs rolled back, stations bare, no one spoke
no one is there ; working from home, alone
Creaking Leviathans, their time passed us
by; these ghost ships will not survive the virus.
I wrote the poem as it became apparent how we would need to find new ways to work from home and it made me think how we had so quickly abandoned the traditional office and may never fully return. I wrote it in the form of a sonnet to represent the ‘old order’ as I usually write more free verse and spoken word. It is with some sadness I am now permanently based from home.
Beautiful