Online Workout

Our son has commandeered the living room
and closed the door against us for this work
that, daily, he can’t bear to have us watch. 

And from the spare room’s makeshift desk, or half-
way up the stairs with toast and tea, we hear
another of his lonely days begin, 

the drub and clobber of his naked feet
against the floorboards drowning out the news
or – worse – the new and awful quietness. 

His little limbs obediently beat
a pulse defying something through our house,
the sound resounding further than he knows.