By Frances Gillard

I am hag

Slap dash

Sag.

Slagheap slag

Mother. Slapper. Saggy skinned lover,

Unloved.

Heart a knotted length of rope, voice of pouring gravel and a touch that reminds you of tarmac on a hot day 

supermarket ham skin sweating under fluorescent light 

Don’t look at me.

Stop.

God forbid I leave this house without a bit of slap.

This stomach-turning tummy, belly 

bulge 

a bit Big

Protruding

Uncomfortable

God I’m

Silly

In this bag of skin

Do I

Am I 

Don’t suit leaving the house like I used to, may as well stay inside

the way

This

This

This gave everything to you, every inch of this body

Tiny I was! brittle fish-bone thing 

Don’t look at me.

I mean it 

I bet the boys love you

I bet they do

So handsome

Of course they do look at her! she’s the spit of you when you

were that age

they couldn’t keep their hands off me 

couldn’t help but touch me wanted to hold me with a firm grip wanted to 

want me

grabbing for that smiling little girl,

stay that little, girl, 

before the rot sets in.

Do they want you like that?

Want for nothing else but the feel of that life giving in all soft and flesh but not too much, of course

just enough to put on the tongue 

to fit in one palm

bird-body

easy to swallow

the size of a nut or the stone of a peach

or a pomegranate seed

and just as sweet, just as sweet

just as sweet as that

not a hag like me.