there is only so long left
of this public examination
all is organised to this end
our youth bent double
drowning in academic gas
interpreting Dulce et Decorum est
while the RAF shake the building
practising manoeuvres,
virtue signalling overhead
in England exam halls full biros scribbling humidity and heat someone decreed the tie must be worn
they will hear nothing of the lark catch not the cuckoo calling cannot simmer in the slow burn to Solstice the ticking clock ninety minutes of mathematics
a pair of blackbirds flush out the jay heron stalking by the weir deep dwellers snapping at surface midges reeds revelling with rainbow trout two hundred children sat in rows
stretched out under the sun barley feathering the fields the school year runs in laps that tighten the adult grip on childhood