Husbandry by Anna Foley

Hawking her wares, she bats her lashes,

for a casual lark as

he fawns pathetically,

hounding her.

He pigs out at her table

squirrelling away for later

his animal appetites,

swallowing them.

He rams my front door open,

bulling down the dark hall and

snaking into my bed,

hogging it.

I long to ferret out the truth,

to badger him to admission

but in false sleep I clam up,

chickening out.

I crane my neck slightly

to drink in the face of the rat.

I seal my clawed guts with hate,

bearing up.

---

“This poem came about after my mother and I played a game collating words relating to animals. This is the type of useless but fun way we both like to relax. I wrote this poem several years ago. I used to write the odd poem but have since given that up, preferring instead to read poetry. When I found this poem again recently, I realised how much I enjoyed the wordplay involved in crafting it.”

Anna Foley lives in East Cork and has had fiction, poetry and memoir published in many print and online literary journals, including The Lonely Crowd, The Honest Ulsterman and The Incubator. She completed the MA in Creative Writing at UCC in 2016. @annaonf