Willing Prey Poem by Mark Heathcote

Given glass ceilings
we're all ring-fenced
drown in rank tall-growing reeds
that'll sedge up all our sweet inlets
While they widen their bitter, greedy outlets
they bask like piranhas, ready to leap and feed
they'll snap at anything that breathes.

So we must hover
like wispy blue dragonflies
and drink in stillness the morning dew
we must, on balance, be their willing prey
tremble and fall like autumn leaves
and yet resist combusting into living flames
somehow we must soar, soar without wings.

Bare on the emptiness, their stewardship-brings
and live with barely enough money or hope.
Given glass ceilings
we're all ring-fenced
we're all metaphorically milked
it's an unwritten agreement
they own us.