I exited my abode abiding by the rules
After twenty-three days it was “essential”
I printed the required permission form
Puzzling on which motive box to tick.

Work, health treatments or grocery supplies
Mine was not listed so I added a square,
Blood donation seemed essential enough
To me to deserve its own place on the sheet.

Apparently the pandemic has made donors disappear.

Equipped with a mask I took the desolate train
It used to pass every half an hour now every two.
Neither the ticket inspector nor the conductor
Were anywhere to be seen, I wondered about the driver

I heard new technologies have made many obsolete.

When I arrived to Trastevere Station Judas trees
Welcomed me in an asphalted desert, a silent cemetery,
Bars and shops were closed as per decree
The only people in the road were the derelicts.

The vagrants, tramps and beggars, the drunken
And the drug addicts, reunited, I had seen them
In the past though never together. Seated
On sidewalks with beer bottles in their hands

They were chatting and laughing seemingly
Enjoying themselves, taking turns
In going to the supermarket to buy the next round.
The city was theirs it made me ponder, Why not?

We ignore them all year-round and now we have retreated
To our homes they have conquered their freedom
From the rudeness of our furtive glimpses, our unspoken
Disapproval. I cerebrate on who is going to give them

Alms, now that those who used to don’t.
How will the windscreen cleaners and the newsboys,
The hawkers, the costermongers and, yes,
Even the peddlers, make a leaving? What are they eating?

These days of quarantine I was dreaming
Speculating on how we will feel, when we will be
Back on the streets. Never once did it occur to me
To consider, how will they feel, when we return

To claim the streets. Four hundred milliliters
Of poured blood later, I made my way in reverse,
Kissed by the sun imbued with peace and quiet
This time I noticed the enchanting pink flowers

Of Judas trees seemingly withering, ahead of time
As I acknowledged, spring has just begun.

[Featured artwork: Save Humanity by Skid Robot]