By the Horns
At breakfast my man sticks a purple
magnolia bud in my soft boiled egg.
The flower opens, distilling to lilac.
On my autumn birthday he wrings
the necks of seven swallow-wings
to gift me the witch’s butter
wobbling like an orange nebula
above their nest –
Beyond the forest a doeling wire-snags
on the wrong side of the fence
tryingtosucklefrom nanny’s bulging udder.
Billy paws the turf, aiming his horns
at me like drop handlebars.
Hélène Demetriades has been longlisted in The National, 2023, and highly commended in the International Fool for Chapbook Award, 2023 & 24. Her debut collection The Plumb Line was published by Hedgehog Press in 2022. She won The Silver Wyvern, 2022, and has poems forthcoming in Magma and The Interpreter’s House. www.helenedemetriadespoetry.