Anne Macdarby
The Ugly Duckling
The stork dropped me in the wrong nest;
my mother, herself a moorhen,
left by mistake with turtles’ eggs,
unmothered, couldn’t mother me.
She pecked me relentlessly:
I was a burden, sounding the wrong note,
didn’t fit into the scheme of things
along the riverbank; the water didn’t suit me.
When I was big enough she pushed me out:
I set off on my own journey
searching for someplace to fit in,
wandering, witnessing many things,
hungry and lonely, despairing.
My search brought me back to the river:
too exhausted to go any further,
I slipped back into the water
but something about me had changed -
I’d learned a new way to swim.
Dragging myself free of the current
onto the bank in a strange country
I shook the wet off my fur,
picked up a strong scent in my nostrils,
pricked up my ears, heard a voice in the distance,
howled in response, ran to join my own pack.
Page(s) 39
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The