Warriors is a lockdown poem, a reflection on how for some, home can be difficult, especially if you aren’t allowed to spend time away from home.
Warriors – Lockdown Poem
Never once do you picture a warrior as a little bundle in a crib sobbing or hungry or afraid. In this army, every warrior has an arsenal.
Aged three and a half, I dug boulders into the ground to shoulder a fat wall. Around it, I ploughed a trench and filled a moat. I am a castle, a fort, a warrior with a shield the size of a mountain. His fists don’t scare me now and from the watchtower, purple skin looks like a butterfly tattoo. My sister and I taught each other morse-code and then I drilled Harry and she scribbled the instructions on a scrap of paper and briefed Chloe under the desk in maths. At night, we cable light signals from the dungeon we pitch tents in the crib we hurl mud and play warfare. Battleplans. At home, I wear shining armour, Monkey snug between my chest and the breastplate. My weapons; a sword in one hand, a bow in the other and arrows on my back. Hideouts; the bathroom, under my bed, the house when no one is there. Key manoeuvres; crawling into through the kitchen door and making it into the back garden without anyone seeing you. There’s long grass there. Longterm strategy; jumping the garden wall or better still, taking off in a fighter jet like the one I saw whizzing past during the air show that Sunday with Mum and my sister, the one that squiggled white smoke across the blue sky or the Red Arrow that dove down straight like a pole only to flip and rocket the last second. We punch the air. Phew!
If axed, this warrior seeks out the company of the wise and the kind and the funny. No one warrior is an army winning every war. Chiefly, this warrior is fierce.
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