‘Lungs bubbling, frothing and wheezing like a coffee machine’: My Covid hell

Night sweats that soaked towels the size of bedsheets

And a chest infection that celebrated the end of November

Through to the second week of the new year and made me

Froth and wheeze like a coffee machine, did not

Dampen my spirits, until a Covid test had me

Phoning friends to tell them I would not be joining their party,

Or that longed-for lunch at the house in the country

That has been the celebratory beginning to every miserable January

For more years than I remember. Suddenly unable to visit

Or be visited my bones itched to be active; I could not watch

My vacant days of feeling ill rattle past like empty biscuit tins

With only crumbs left in, while my lungs bubbled. So, as the

Temperature dropped outside and the water in the dogs’ bowls froze,

I dragged out the heavy-duty pressure washer, limping on its flat tyres,

Attached a hose and began to strip the thick black slime

From the pale stone rectangles of dog run and yard. Two inches at a time.

I water-chiselled off the grime as my feet grew numb in the cold.

The machine engine pounded, and the movement of the water gun

Sent its filthy spatter surging ahead in an algae-slick tide. Past dusk,

Into the dark, working by sensor lights, I made those useless hours matter.