POETRY ... Jo SHAPCOTT

Brünhilde
Jo Shapcott

Brünhilde is not a young
woman. She is as old as
God and much heavier. I
am vanquished by her purple
quilted slippers, the way a
whiff of boiled kidney slips from
both the insoles when she walks.
I want to drink out of them,
a good strong rioja with
its own tang set off by hers.
She doesn't insert curlers
but I intend to make her.
They must all be dusty pink:
many of the little prongs
must be worn away or snipped
off leaving small prickly nubs
that catch at my skin when I
nibble her ear. O but her
perfume must be old piss and
Pledge, and I will be her dog,
wear her stiff nylon housecoat;
Brünhilde with her penchant
for Silk Cut, the French poems of
Rilke, her instinct for the
most vivid ways to ripen,
the most vivid ways to rot.

From Her Books: Poems 1988-98
Jo Shapcott
(Faber & Faber, 1999)