Evacuation Preparations

We argue over who does the washing up
I wonder if we’ll see the eggs in the nest on our balcony hatch into chicks. In between plans for what to cook for dinner we discuss the relative merits of planting the herbs we bought from the market. They will die if we leave them in this sun.
On the news; explosions, gunfire, dead-
More and more dead
but here
Strawberries, truffles, new fruits in the market place, birds tinkling passed the edges of car horns hooting in their usual impatient way, men with horses and carts with petrol tanks or vegetables or gas, narghilla in cafes and parks, backgammon, shutters on the street closed in the morning, sugar cane juice, dinner parties, reading on the balcony, yoga on the roof in the mornings, marking to do, lessons to plan, the characters we meet.