It starts with a longing
to look, neck crooked,
watch the moon rise fat,
yellow as churned butter.
Nothing unusual in that.
But each passing month,
as the moon waxes, turns gibbous,
she grows hungry. Cannot be satisfied
by bowls of pasta or chips.
Eats fistfuls of cold chicken
in the sulphur glow of the fridge
A hunger that sends her
to the butchers to buy
red slabs of steak, a rabbit
she slips from its skin, roasts whole.
Knows she will still wake
with an ache in her stomach.
She starts to walk
through the city, past the prison,
teenage boys in cars that shout
wolf whistle, honk their horns.
Over the silvered cricket lawn and up
small dark paths that wind through black gorse
to the heath where she hunts.
She starts with rats, squirrels, plump roosting pigeons,
rabbits that scream and kick like infants.
Once a cat, all bristle and hiss
goes home with scratches that seep.
Walks further, to a smallholding,
polytunnels, handfuls of hens, a troop of pygmy goats,
flesh the same sour tang as their milk
buries the bones in the woods. Goes home
still hungry.
One night, there is a man in the woods,
stumbles drunkenly, gently keening, crooning.
Follows him, all yellow eyes, snarls
that fill her throat like vomit.
In the grey light of dawn, she walks home
past silent houses, bruised,
to her bed, where she licks her wounds
then sleeps, fat and full as the moon.
| Amber Bradbury lives in the rural county of Norfolk in the UK and will soon begin studying for her final year of a BA in Creative Writing and English Literature. She is currently in the very early stages of writing her first novel. Her short fiction has been published in Litro Magazine and her poetry has appeared in Carmina Magazine, BOMBFIRE and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. |  |