A Taxidermist Regenerates Blackburn
The heart had gone out of it.
They’d wanted a Poundland
or a Gregg’s; said they needed it.
She got out the rat purse,
unzipped the fur, counted the coins.
She knew where to spend a pound
to buy a frozen takeaway mouse,
better than cruising the estate
looking for rotting bodies,
so pretty in the gutter.
Her Mum said she’d kept worms in a jar,
dug up friend’s pets. Hadn’t learnt to speak
with a plum in her mouth; not round here.
Instead, she curled her “R’s”
around Blackburn, and the slugs
slurred in her mouth, popped out clean,
never leaving a nasty taste.
Not for her the fake plastic tan of Ken,
the hard body of Barbie,
the stiff limbs and swivelling heads.
Inside her Grandma’s house
she did it herself. Found flesh
a gasp of breath. Filled the space
with pulp and imagination.
Art sprawled naked on the sofa
as style crossed her threshold.
She showed it how to spread-eagle rats.
Flatten bodies, face down.
Hold a knife, slice from head to tail
between fingers and thumb, rip and tear,
turn fur and innards inside out.
Sever connections, suture up the past.
A fortune telling squirrel dressed in bling
peers into a crystal ball; the murky waters
of the Leeds Liverpool canal slowly part.
Jake the ten foot Burmese python
squeezed into a freezer;
lies coiled like a giant black pudding
waiting for the thaw.
Marion Oxley started writing poetry four years ago and was long listed last year in the Plough Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in several local anthologies and more recently in the Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine. She lives on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border.