I have just read my last blog, written over a year ago. I had intended to finish the story, including the effects of the chemotherapy and my eventual recovery. Maybe one day. In the meantime, I’ve also had a hip replacement just before everything shut down in WA and I was isolated for two months – Covid 19, plus not being able to drive until my new hip healed.

I expected to do lots of creative writing in that time, but my Muse went on strike. I was told by other creatives in the family that they had the same problem. Artists and writers enjoy the silence of their own space, but it seems we also crave human interaction.

Once the worst was over, for us in WA, I started writing again, initially inspired by that isolation. My partner and I couldn’t get together for several months. This was my response, written for a poetry competition with ‘Love’ as the theme.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONA

Now I wake to an empty space beside me

to the absence of your smile

your eyes alight with love

the gentle caress of your hand

on my thigh, my breast

the touch of your lips on mine.

I miss your greeting,

‘Good morning my darling

I love you my darling.’

Will I ever hear your voice again

so close beside me,

and know that for you

I am the most beautiful

most treasured woman in the world?