There’s a smirking cartoon animal
From off of Kid’s TV
On a pastel coloured plaster on your chest
But if you wash too often
Its edges start to pucker
And eventually it drifts off in the scum.
There’s some scowling cartoon animals
On the ducal coat of arms
Tattooed over the scab the plaster hid.
The scab is black and crusty
Like a dried hard dirty pan
And you tease its corners with your fingernails.
And the scab’s big as a grapefruit
And it softly tears away
To expose a deep and ancient open wound
That’s pustular and seeping
And goes down to the bone
And you can barely look at it, but must.
Then you’ll see the crosshatching of scars,
The tissue start to split
And that’s England, that is, hewn into your chest
By a millennium of conquest,
Dispossession, theft and lies,
And festering with gangrene in your heart.
So best go to the biscuit tin
Where we keep the first aid
With a Cotswold Cottage printed on the lid
And get an aspirin like a Smartie
And another pastel plaster
With smirking cartoon animals from off of Kid’s TV.