illustrated poem – a pregnant gander
Collaboration with Justin McIntosh
hey you silly goose:
standing there wobbly hinged
a mess of webbed feet
one claw atop the other’s
ungainly
though that walk no worse a prima donna’s
your neck long and lifted
that beautiful golden beak unperturbed
in air thin and stale with wet and droppings
for what have you to fear?
this stretch of park?
yours alone.
nearby your kin sound a ridiculous bray of honkings
unruffled
might you peck and bite
my heart?
hammers
as i walk past
chilled in evening’s shadows
with luster just leaving the skies
but you
couldn’t be less bothered
nor moved.