12

by Robert Sheppard

Overdub of Long time a child, and still a child
by Hartley Coleridge

you were that child
and still your fight’s there in the
distanced classroom
blond man–boys rattle their toys
in their own echoes
your father strode the station foyer
attracting government spies
his thought–pulses becoming song

shelter inside this sonnet to exchange
the stock history of the avant–garde
for loose strands from the sociopath’s weave

we won a race that never ran
squatting in squat watchtowers to watch
failure in December blight us in May

14th May 2020