Ode to COVID

Issue 9 Volume 17

RENZO TWEEDIE

“I wrote this piece when everything was very uncertain and things I had been taking for granted were no longer accessible. Looking back, it’s strange to remember the mindset I was in. Now, I feel hopeful and determined, it really is amazing to experience our capacity to adjust. If you’re looking for someone to talk to happiness is only a teardrop away (haha love Shrek 2 but seriously my virtual door is always open).”

Image: Pexel

O Covid, I wish you would
Infect me and not my colleagues,
as leagues of lines and lines invisible 
Have sprung between my friends and I. 

O Covid, I write to you from a public space
Where shifting eyes and tight grips abound,
I keep forgetting I mustn’t touch my face,
A race to the sky, yet heads in the ground.

O Covid! shaking hands, kisses on the cheek, all I have ceased,
and yet, I refresh Grindr every fifteen minutes,
it is true that right now we need a release.
So what I’m willing to touch, it shows.

O Covid! You’re fear, you’re panic,
You’ve struck deep, past the lung and pierced
the heart which breathes,
Heavier than just a day before.

O Covid, your nature is not yet
understood, 
Misinforming, we’re scattered and feathered
Non-conforming, business shattered and fettered, 
And it’s transforming- the great work of Ovid.

O Covid! I know that I should
Wash my hands for the tenth time this morning.
O Covid! I wish to awake from 
This night not dawning.
O Covid, in a sea of over and under sensationalism I’m drowning.

O Covid, you are Goliath
and I am David. 
O Covid. 
When can we return to
the usual political dramas?
Instead of death rates and infections,
I want backstabbings and confessions. 

Our hillsong preacher, must have 
sweat on his brow,
And yet, this sweat, surely
coats us all like sanitiser.

Of love in the time of corona,
my love, I can’t see
your features, for they’re masked
Behind zealous measures

O Covid, I can hear
the sound of furtive listening.
Are you listening? 
Covid
Am I listening?

​Renzo Tweedie is third-year JD student.​