I do not want to take part in this rally.
Us against them. Which one is an Aunt Sally?
I hope, noticing me and this placard,
they will not come across and kick me hard.
I hope no stage will need me to decide
whether to rescue someone on our side,
and none remind me, every year I live,
I was cowardly or provocative.
I hope for space to let my bladder settle
not in a crowd, not in a police kettle.
We'll make the point against the wretched man,
and get away as early as we can.
This poem was written in July 2018, a response to prompt 38 in Jo Bell's 52: write a poem a week. The brief was to write against something. Reluctance to take part in a counter-protest is about as against as anything can be.
I went on the counter-protest I describe, and my anxieties proved, as usual, to be groundless. I can supply details of the causes on request.
The poem found publication in the booklet All together now from Babylon Art Gallery, Ely. The gallery ran a competition for poems to be made into a comic book. Mine wasn't the winner, but All together now gave a print opportunity to all the submitted work.
