Frieda Hughes: A poem a week

A poem a week, he said, peeled from my seven days

Like sticky fly-paper in which might be embedded an owl, or a garden,

A snake, ferret, or feeling of joy or despair – even a sleepless night. Or maybe

A dog walk in a narrow country lane with two mismatched rescue huskies. One

Ate a piece of my left leg on her first day, in her effort to rip out the other dog’s throat

For withholding his last breakfast biscuit. She loves me now; we are bonded well beyond

Ambulance and stitches and other sisterhood ceremonies.

I still wear the mark of missing flesh at my ankle as a reminder

That putting my leg into a dogfight in which teeth are chisels

Does not shock two raging animals into sudden obedience.

Poems are where I put my heartbeat when no one is listening.

Poems are where I unravel the knots of anything I am powerless to change,

Or record the shock I feel at whatever I cannot otherwise articulate.

Poems are where I hide my secrets in metaphor or confess my fury or my fear.

My poems are where I work myself out and sometimes

A door opens. This week, the poem-request is compelling;

It doesn’t matter that I have oil paintings boiling for attention on their easels,

Or that emails are stacking like log-jammed buses,

Or that letters pile up unanswered, drying out like seaweed,

This poem has a deadline, and the deadline is mine.