Mainbeam newsreel motorways,
one last essential trip.
Lack of full lockdown;
faff is favoured action.
‘Avoid All Service Areas’ –
yet need to pee and feed.
Slip road, deserted car parks;
eerie beyond Eryri.
MoD plod are parked up,
frown-stare lit screen faces.
Indifference to surroundings;
portents of a nightmare.
Newly socially distanced
we will all choose to speak:
‘Only taken a grand today’
say the ladies at BK.
‘Bloke just spent two hundred on booze!’
little shop staff they say.
‘Good luck and stay safe’
our repeat refrain to one another.
Road ahead lay devoid then
except one incoming cluster:
seems safer to savour now
the apprehension of the Pre.