Why I’m having to rehome a much-loved family pet
... I’m not fat-shaming, but my pet python has simply become too large, writes poet and artist Frieda Hughes
THE (FIVE FOOT) LONG GOODBYE
I have been saying goodbye to her an inch at a time,
Stroking down her satin overlaps as if
She will vibrate with some kind of recognition
After Christmases of chilling indifference
Through the turn of the leaves and the spiral of the sun.
She has grown a handspan a year
For nine years now, leaving me her old clothes,
Slipping out of them like a corkscrew,
Sometimes soaking for days in her bath
To loosen the folds.
The foot-long baby I brought home
Has split her skin more times
Then I have ever fallen out of a dress.
Her receipts have faded in the snake file
Until the date of her purchase is almost indistinguishable
From the matt of the paper; a disappearing souvenir.
Tomorrow, she will twist her length into new branches
And peer through the glass in a biology schoolroom
To the delight of children, all fighting for adulthood
Through the prisms of Shirley’s eyes.