‘Collateral damage’, which is

tossed round like a parent’s beachball

at an underage house party,

translates exactly: ‘something good,

at the grave expense of horror’.

It’s a means to an end. Whisk off

your beloved eggs to a place

where doctrine from before the plague

and far predating Roman rule

has burrowed deep inside the skulls

of all its heads of year since day.