Poetry – And then only the women remained

The men had faced
the hooded clock
and fallen first.
Dusty or sudden,
they went,
and then only the women remained.
They swept up the mess,
as they had been taught,
tied on plastic caps,
and gathered in quiet hordes.
Grey and rinsed and wrinkled,
with button eyes full
of world domination,
they planned in flowered notebooks.
No-one would notice.

Until it was too late.