keep your mask on motherfucker

long boned hand gently cradling his coffee cup    
clean fingernails  
a comedown walk  
among the pigeons fucking and the fucking homeless    
languid      
unbitten by the cold morning      
that scraped the skin on me raw    
unhurried      
while we all had somewhere to be    
or risk the shame of breaking the lockdown code    
     
for all the world a flaneur      
mistaking each other for a daydream fool    
he took the time to slow
to a rubberneck crawl and shift
his sneaker’d feet to face me on    
intently behind journalist glasses    
waiting      
for me to recognise him as an equal    
     
it took a moment for my mind to register      
the idle threat of it    
i could have caused a problem i guess    
     
but i had a bus to catch    
and just try me, bitch      
     
get your unessential bony butt back home    
like me    
that’s what i’m doing