It’s a suffocating Thursday in April
and the clocks are striking eight.
Emerging from behind rainbows
sunny sycophants gather
with bells and gavels,
clogging the roadside.
Simulations, locking eyes,
they small-talk and simmer.
Craning round corners –
who’s not out tonight?
They wave and clap and clamour
must be loudest, must be last.
Loose tongues to the left,
popped hips to the right.
An apocalyptic surreality of
submissive saucepan smacking,
surgeons grinning from ear to ear,
masking hideous judgment.