The Winner Won’t Win

Dean Sobers

Hearing air horns, vuvuzelas.
Houses emptied for miles around.
The sound of exhaled breath dragging
in the throat.
Sounds of braying crowds.
It doesn’t need voicing.
“The winner will win!
Now, the winner will win!”

Never felt such heaviness.
Such incessant, tireless weight.
Sometimes it is what it is.
Sometimes there aren’t any factors,
vectors, choices.
Can smell breath.
Carping, honking, whistling.
Hear them:
“Sometime the winner will win!
Will win!”
No shit.
Sounds of breathing.
The sounds of breathing.
The sound of breathing.

What a stale stench.
What intransigence.

This body should have been pulped
and the mind gone.
Gone.

Have barely felt such heaviness.
Such incessant, tireless weight.
Have never felt such willingness.
They think the winner would win.