Tuesday poem: The poet contemplates the inescapable nature of the class system
April 5, 2016
The poet contemplates the inescapable nature of the class system
A Richter moment of tectonic rock came
when I heard the voice of smug middle class
speaking through me. A mythic, conceited Volvo
blonde used me as her blank-eyed dummy,
stuck lovely manicure up me and made me say
‘The guinea pigs don’t like asparagus!’.
My ears could not believe my mouth’s betrayal,
the change marked by that simple recipe.
The seesaw tipped, sudden rodeo bucking,
swung away from student furniture of bricks,
stray cushions and ideas, towards clogging
superannuation of risotto and good red.
Class catches us like butterflies, or half-frozen slugs,
which we pick, so carefully, from our organic greens.
P.S. Cottier
No telling who that poet might be, but I used to have guinea pigs…And how’s that for a catchy title, by the way?
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PS Cottier 