Robert Verdon, #159, Future Privatised

walking up the peeling bare flagpole

of the shut-down state school

the fly sees many schools

through its compound eyes

the ones that might have been

and might still be, the schools

(or hospitals, or scientific

institutions) that might improve

our short lives on this earth,

or even lengthen them;

of course, the fly fails to grasp

the significance of all this,

as far as we know, and is soon a-buzz

within the house of a local worthy

whose maid swiftly sprays it stone dead.