Wild Woman

Unmanned, like a bull bereft of all;
a flaccid decoration without use;
at least if thee had what I have
thou could be a woman;

eunuch hiding your treasure for marriage
and hypocrisy. And leave me with empty decoration; rings without sense,
dresses without purpose.

Go about your business thou say
I want nothing to do with thee now;
yet not a month ago it was all Peggy this,
Peggy that; such are the changes of the seasons.

I can’t give birth to an empty ache;
wet nurse it; teach it its fathers worth;
I can’t tell the ache how we loved,
how we met, how we joyed.
I can’t sit round this mughouse days
and months. I must out into the world
roll in the smell of Man again
with a jug of ale in one hand
and earning a stony crust
from some wight with a jangling purse.
And forget the bull that was castrated.