Jan Harris

Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire

Jan Harris’s poems have appeared in various journals including Acumen, Envoi, Snakeskin, and The French Literary Review, and in several anthologies, including For the Silent, (Indigo Dreams Publishing). She was placed third in the Wales Poetry Award, 2019. Her first collection, Mute Swans on the Cam, was published by Oversteps Books in 2020.

Poem completed 19th August 2020

Before we take flowers, we eat out to help out

 

I’m not allowed to hold my daughter’s hand.

We blow each other kisses. Improvise.

In this new-normal world, we mourn the old.

 

How are you, sweetheart? It’s been such a while.

The table’s bare and freshly sanitised.

I’m not allowed to hold my daughter’s hand.

 

Behind his mask, our waiter wears a smile.

We see it in the corners of his eyes.

In this new-normal world, we mourn the old.

 

We chat about her work, my new hairstyle,

eat curly kale and fragrant jasmine rice.

I’m not allowed to hold my daughter’s hand.

 

The churchyard isn’t far, less than a mile.

A jet plane draws a line across the sky.

In this new-normal world, we mourn the old.

 

We take his favourites: lilies of the Nile,

some pansies for the pot. The soil’s baked dry.  

In this new-normal world, we mourn the old.

I’m not allowed to hold my daughter’s hand.