The ABC was our song, we’d hummed it together
the night we’d met. We couldn’t believe we knew it too.

Then the plastic snail came along with its Hawking recording –
we rolled him to the cat tray on his yellow wheels.

Together we sang the melodic sequins of it opening
the ups & downs of each cadence Aaa Bee Cee Dee Eee Fff Ggg

and stuck with it through the military rattle of l,m,n,o,p,
to where it begins to fall apart in Tourette’s phonetics

and never recovers. The ‘and’ between ‘Y and Z’
is an affront to the tonally deaf. It becomes like jazz

– in its aleatory nonsense – and we fuckin hated jazz.
But I loved that song, I thought it was ours.