I don’t know why the world isn’t screaming about what’s happening in Afghanistan

CONSTRAINTS

Sometimes we choose our constraints

And the heartbeats of our boundaries. But not always.

For the first time in months, since my critter-carer

Who’d feed my ferrets, walk dogs and toss defrosted chicks

To waiting owls left me, I stayed away for a night.

Henley-on-Thames was still there, with the river idling by

As if it never rose or fell, offering ducks and geese

In return for bread, in a world in which the shutters are closing.

Senior government policy advisors in anonymous buildings

Are finding ways to qualify themselves for enrichment

And give themselves purpose – even in being pointless –

While diminishing your one, your only, precious life.

Legislation, complications, restrictions, go slow, go slower still,

Until stationary. Licences, certificates, three points of contact

On all ladders, and AI is closing in, reinventing us as it feeds

From the dwindling freedoms of mostly women. Some don’t

Even own the land rights to their own wombs, others are banned

From speaking in public from beneath the premature shrouds

That obliterate their features, by men, in fear of other men

Who cannot control their upright appendages, and themselves.