Rupert Mallin
The Strange Case Of The Lavatory Funnel
Dear Heather,
At twelve
I should have been a girl. Yes.
Their secrets were so dark.
Why did the girls’ lavatory
have a funnel? Why did black smoke
occasion from it? Was it some act
of special ordination?
Like choosing the Pope?
Why didn’t we have a funnel?
Why didn’t our lavatory smoke?
At twelve
I should have been a girl. Yes.
They wore special pads and belts
to turn them into women. I knew.
They had special days in the month
and special notes for the mistress
to excuse them from trampolining.
That’s why they rode bikes
without cross-bars
or cow-horn handle-bars
and smelt of lemons. Yes. I knew.
The Plumbs told me all.
They told me about the funnel.
Why aren’t boys all full of eggs?
At thirty
I should have been a girl. Yes.
You only have to look about to see that:
acid rain, rugby and barbed wire
between women and the funnels of destruction;
between women and our potential for freedom;
between women and the relationships of power
in a hierarchy of power…
The funnel lets off steam.
The men are for telling no one.
Page(s) 117
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