Middle Age Spread

A shelf sneered in my direction; I did not succumb to hoisting
myself up on to its bracket, to sit starved of male affection.
I wore my wrinkles like some stripes emblazoned proudly on my arm,
locked ticking-time-clocks in the drawer and batted off piggish swipes.

A spinster rocking chair swiped out, striving to seat my sunken spine,
but I kicked it into the fire! Then watched its last breaths simper out.
Soup-for-One cans beat the old maid as if they were metal batons,
sleighing her to a scarlet pulp, while I was still out getting laid…

I peered across my grey contours, checked myself from top to bottom,
scavenging for this ‘sell-by date’ which would deem me a dinosaur.
My biological clock – mute, it did not dare to bleat a sound,
nor throw me on life’s scrapheap just because of some greying roots.

 

Sarah Louise Parry
Sarah Louise Parry is currently an undergraduate Journalism student at Cardiff University.