Poem: Rumination

A poem remembering a particular rumination.

We were all pretty horrible back then, varying degrees of course.
We had a new flatmate, and joked about what we might do
to her room; a joke by the way. Just a joke. But some of the jokes
were getting pretty rough, and, also, not many of them were
very funny. Something about hiding a dog shit in the bedroom
turned rather nastily to the idea of a human shit…

Then Richard told us all off. Said that was horrible. It was surprising.
He’d been quiet all this time.

Then he took the floor. “You can’t do that. That’s not nice. And
also far too easy. Look”, he said, blank expression as ever, just telling
us the facts as he saw it: “What you do is you take the shit. Then
freeze it. You then grind it down into a fine powder. Smear it on the
backs of the posters in her room. Give it time. It will start to seep out,
the smell…let it ruminate…give it a few months. Trust me. This is better”.