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Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: This Man Comes In
by Tiffany Anne Tondut
I began writing this poem when my husband was working through a series of storms - my heart went out to him. I was due to give birth at the end of that month, and we both feared the increasing threat of COVID. As lockdown began, and continued, this poem developed in response to his concerns, the challenges we faced and the humour during that strange time. I remain seriously proud of this man.
Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: This Man Comes In
He’s tough, this man. A worker. Early. Shoulders the weight
of a high-rise day, boots brick-heavy, hands: gloveless,
calloused.
‘Better to grip’ he’d wink, rolling a smoke for a fix on the go
as he waves in trucks, cranes, deliveries of rain to a roof
where he weighs up the wind.
For him, the clearest threat was always glass; fear was a pipe
burst. Now there’s a risk that’s more than the building’s worth,
and when this man comes in
he’s drilling what ifs through his head, fretting to me about numbers,
equipment, boundaries unheeded by men and we touch,
but after he’s showered.
And after he’s showered,
and after I’ve massaged the hours from out his back or legs,
I think about clapping, and look to the clock and realise, again,
what we’ve missed.
Recording provided as part of Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020. Used by permission of the author.
A special thank you to our WordView 2020 poets.
Chair of the Judging Panel, Imtiaz Dharker, says: “The hundreds of entries we received blew in to the Archive like a breath of pure, unpolluted air from all over the world, revealing something of the time we are living in, some telling it straight, some slant. It was exciting to check in to the Poetry Archive’s Youtube channel every morning and come upon one unexpected voice after another."
See the collectionWatch the full Wordview 2020 playlist