In the back room, rooms the back

They always come to find them, 

hurricane-sheltered in lines too crass

for comment or pose.

 

Month upon month of hardback,

they toppled down the mile-long steps, to get up

only at the cheater's whistle, whip-crack;

plead for mercy and witnessed complex

competition, prizes and incentives

(massacre a punctuality for the losers)

now left up here to see out this broiled,

violent summer, in a cement room without

window, image, bed to lie - chair to sit on,

huddled in a corner, counting seconds

till the cruel sun shall deign to appear.