Against Conceit Poem by Roddy Lumsden

Don't say Sir Pigeon in his cobalt bonnet.
Don't find among your notes
jottings on duvets and blizzards and the page

unwalked across black missives of girlhood
must be sent off and do not claim the furnace
of the universe is powered by human screams.

When the dark turns dark
or when the bullet lifts a scalp,
it is enough to know the lover feels the slap

that the world can hear the sharp shout
which wakes the cat
her claws one inch from the rabbit's bobbing scut.