New verse from Wellington writer Geoff Cochrane.
Overheard
Scots College blazer, prefect’s badge.
A slenderly sturdy six-footer, dark.
He’s walking briskly with his head held high,
his cellphone pressed to his ear,
and this what I can’t but hear him saying:
‘Don’t do it. Please don’t do it. Please don’t do it, please.’
From the 2017 collection RedEdits by Geoff Cochrane (Victoria University Press, $25), available at Unity Books.