Fat cat

He was the bad boy who baked his conkers,
peed over the wall into the girls’ toilets;
he was the bad mouth who heckled at hustings;
the dream-peddler with the silver forked tongue;
the city slicker with the inside information
and the fast woman in the fast car in the fast lane.
Now he’s a fat cat in the corporate playground
where there’s no code of practice on bullying,

and I’m shit-scared when I walk into the board-room
and he smiles like a shark with a hearty appetite
till I notice a small scar by his left temple
and I think, I gave him that, behind the bike sheds
one wet Monday, he was messing with my girl,
and I know I’ll never get a bigger bonus.

Elisabeth Rowe