Carnival

The speaker on the oval

sounds like it really only

fits, say, a pasta bowl of

sound through its cone,

yet the voice is trying to

push through a bathtub

of intense verbal growl,

yelling in peak distortion,

not sound wave so much

as a brick of blunt noise.

It is carnival day, teenage

athletics, the whole school

is there, well near enough,

he’s decided to stick here

on the basketball court in

audible range of the oval,

just a croquet court for the

elderly between them, he

has watched a few games

where the old timers take

their earned time striking

balls across the green like

Alice in Wonderland, 1951

original animation on VHS,

he knows because of the

scan lines, horizontal like

he wants to be, streamed

to mobile with AirPods in,

floating in the background

same playlist playing now

to block out the sound of

school spirit, not for him,

who cares, look at where

he is beneath Winter sun,

the courts here pushing a

trolly ferrying Louise and

Sally, wouldn’t be caught

dead at sport, twin noodle

legs slung over the bars,

teak hair ribboning as he

swings the shopping trolly

in a broad arc, white teeth

parted as hiemal air phases

around them in a wash of

outsider celebration. Later

they’ll huddle beneath the

lighthouse by the harbour

coated in abundant silence,

near enough, only crackle

from the fire and the sticks.