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Clare Kirwan
Weird Week
On Monday I became invisible,
stumbled into, trodden on and brushed aside,
pulled out in front of at junctions, roundabouts.
I tried smiles - which were returned unopened.
I said I was lonely but no one heard me speak.
I was stared through - not like I was a window,
but more a grey area or just a feeling
that has to be endured or struggled through.On Tuesday all our prayers turned into dogs
the solid Labradors of the devout looked down
on fripperies - the fancy poodles, Pekinese
with their tail-wagging please, please, please.
Some people wanted prayers to be retrievers
but mostly they looked back with spaniel eyes,
though I saw a woman mumbling Chihuahuas
and a hospital surrounded by Great Danes.On Wednesday everyone was very sorry.
Repent! Repent! the morning seagulls cried.
Politicians wept in suits of sackcloth
for those that died, the ones they could have saved
and marked themselves with a graffiti of ashes -
a dot, a dash in this new remorse code.
Old quarrels sank on penitential knees,
abject, contrite, shamefaced into the night.On Thursday they sold love in supermarkets
priced in arms and legs - but it was worth it.
Soon everyone was selling love
off the back of a lorry, hardly used love
in a suitcase shiftily on a street corner,
love in the trinket aisle at the 50p shop,
pirate love unable to stand up to close scrutiny,
love on eBay in the middle of the night.On Friday everyone seemed to be leaving
with suitcases, lunch packs or plastic bags
(and I remembered heading off once, dazed but urgent,
with just a change of underwear, a tin of soup, an A-Z).
But this new Exodus summoned my neighbours
with attaché cases, back packs, satchels, sacks,
tiny neutron handbags, brimming
with the miniature machinery of their lives.