Disgrace

She peeks over her spectacles
Like a vexed librarian
But this is no library
And I am no inconsiderate reader.
She does not vocalise her complaint
But I assume it is something to do
With my tapping my pencil eraser’s metal rim
Against the tombstone tips of my teeth,
And the stopping thereof.
I meet her gaze
And flash her a grin
Like a crescent of clipped toenail.
These petty atrocities
I commit all the time.
This is a five year plan.
This is a skull-fuck by instalments.

And when she returns to her book,
Prodding her specs up the tanned saddle of her nose,
I wait –
One Mississippi
Two Mississippi
Three Mississippi –
Then I lift the pencil like a baton,
My incisors a lectern,
Music, maestro.
The concerto commences.