I Think That Took a While to Warm Up

In a post-graduate university rhyme
a rat comes out of a drain in the wrong waistcoat and is shot.
No one is in love as they’ve become more self-aware.
Everyone is waiting for dessert eating their starters,
checking the time. A sweet young couple in tracksuits
cannot help but mutually masturbate at the back of the bus.
A voice is heard in the rain or the birds at night or the pub
that the fans don’t talk about on the way to the game
before the fight, nor the rat they see scurry past.
But it looks like Ronnie O’Sullivan, thinks Mash.
He glimpses art for the first time, a mural to the shot rat. Time stands still
awkwardly. The bus goes back and nothing is linear,
everyone feeling it, looking at the tarts.
No one says “tarts” anymore, thinks Mash: he goes through the gates
to the game inhaling
a pie. A rash appears on his arm and his lips pulse
for the first time. Everyone is looking at him and then their watches
but no one cares. The sweet young couple, their tracksuit
bottoms around their ankles: Mash runs
in front of the team bus.