The Battle of Beech Avenue
someone has scrawled
ARE YOU NOT BORED
on the boards that board up the pub
no question mark, like it’s not the questioner who needs the answer
the echoes of the latest fight still trickle off the pavement
you can tell by just smelling
like a bathroom that’s been bathed in
sitting in the designated smoking area
equidistant from the gas cooker inside (lighters slip out your grip in this house like big rope)
and the edge of the sunspot
watching a housemate’s still-steaming bath
splutter down the drainpipe and collide with the gutter grate
to splatter and sputter on the rubble
makes me contemplate
not the brevity of life
or fetishise the way the birds sing anyway,
but the grubbiness of the fag butt bobbing on the bubbles
we've never been happier
We have a favour to ask
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