Take it away.
They will say that it was my
cat that killed it,
but I cannot accept responsibility.
Call in the men on their snorting, steaming chargers,
dredge up for me the plumy-helmeted ones.
Let them stride
and puff themselves out with unacceptable opinions.
Let them mouth shrill attitudes on women and the vote.
I will scrub, bleach,
pledge to don the bustle and the corset.
But please get it out of here – this clutch in the throat,
this drenched, foul fragment of the universe’s
nether spaces, wings puckering round some intangible quote,
its eye the gelatinous pit of the albatross…
O ye lords steel-
shanked and sanctimonious, pray, take this from me.
Bring in, after all, the big boys. I can learn to live by rote.