Beorc

Once, we had a supply teacher 
that arrived on Wednesday, the day
we sang in class. She was supposed 

to accompany us on an instrument of her
choosing during our weekly atonal 
shrieking, but couldn't play a thing. 

At lunchtime she learned a single
chord from the ageing Casanova 
in charge of the upper sixth, on a warped

acoustic guitar from the art room, 
(the subject of a thousand still lives,) 
She plucked each note separately,

relentlessly not having the confidence 
to play the notes together. We sang  
with giggling gusto about birch trees

and beavers to an endless round 
of c-e-g-c, punctuated by  arhythmic
sleighbells, claves and triangles. 

Ten years later punk and it's DIY 
ethic broke. I thought of Miss Kerrigan 
and her one chord wonder - how we 

gamely caterwauled to the circling 
c-e-g-c. Miss Kerrigan was 
punk as fuck.