Taxidermy
His sheets smell of formalin.
She feels as if her insides
are outside her, in a freezer.
Instead of a heart
she now has cotton wool,
and where he’s stitched her
back together the seams itch.
While she was out cold he scraped
out her eye-sockets to insert
glass eyes she cannot close.
Bestarium
He comes like ninety
wolves leaping through air
he is Bête du Gévaudan
killer-wolf and loup-garou
he comes as a mastiff-hyena cross
as he flies he catches dogs
mid-air and toys with them
she is his shepherdess
she’ll go on all fours for him
he’ll bite her by the scruff
the bed his watering hole
for all the night-beasts
you are mine he repeats
you are thinking of me
Photograph © Jim Hickcox
These poems are from Petit’s forthcoming collection Mama Amazonica, to be published by Bloodaxe Books in September.
