|
First
published in Orbis no. 142,
ISSN
0300 4425
The Shapeshifter's
Wife
He told me before
we married.
Intrigued,
I imagined riding
a
dragon, swimming with my own dolphin,
running
through woods
with
a wolf. My fingers tingled
to
think of caressing silky scales,
ruffling
through tiger fur.
I
waited. It didn’t happen. He told me
he
couldn’t do dragons on command.
He
told me it was about mood, about feel,
about
who he is in the moment. I waited.
There
was the time he came home early
one
morning, a tomcat, stinking and scruffy.
I
yelled at him for staying out, then watched
his
curled sleep, fascinated
by
the way I could recognise him in the twitch
of
a whisker; still daring to hope for bigger changes.
I
didn’t know then how his workdays would leave
me
with old slippers for company, sullen
in
their stubborn comfort before the TV soaps;
nor
did I guess I would be spending summer Sundays
gardening
while an extra rug slumped on the deck.
Worst
of all, the times he is a chair:
I
could scream in frustration
at
his mahogany silence,
hurt
myself kicking at his stiffness.
I
cry, hopeless,
at
his refusal to be a man.
Angela France
|
