by Kathleen Kenny
My tastes changed. My fashion sense and cooking skills deserted
and the thought of sleeping indoors became more than I could bear;
that feather bed, the weight of it: my yellow face.
I had begun to drink, moved to the yard to save my liver.
It's cool and clean and I am discrete about my toilet.
I can't set foot in a house now without the urge to move my bladder.
The whole shameful episode of sleeping under eiderdowns.
The unpredictability of human nature. Loneliness.
I met him on the boating lake in Leazes Park. He said what he liked
about me best
were my bright carrot legs: the silver-tongued charmer.
I never thought twice when he asked me to the island. Dry land for
eggy-sex, he said.
I was as idiotic as a gosling. Gosling talk was all we did.
I was never really keen on kids, but now can't wait.
Our first egg is over there in the nest. Frankie is sitting on it
while I write this.
That's how good he is, dedicated to his task.
Building, nesting, making hay. Not like a man at all.
When Frank says he's never leaving, I believe him.
Security is a state of mind, and being taken from behind seems a small
price.
And we do talk face to face and there is kissing of a sort.
And to be straight I don't miss all that tongue in mouth, funnelled throat.
I prefer to forget being human, except now and then an old female
friend cycles past.
Sometimes she stops to look at the swans and ducks but avoids me like
the plague.
I see her pretend to admire plants, spying on my egg, giving the eye to
Frank.
I'm watching from our nest, snapping twigs big as planks. Feeling the
weight of myself.
Kathleen Kenny likes to remain optimistic even in the face of opposition from almost all of the British media.
