Nina Boyd
Gallop
Papa has a mind to marry me off to the major,
home from Bengal to find, woo and wed
a passable bride, and carry her off on a P&O liner
to idle in sunshine where servants are naked and brown.
This suitor has no more appeal than the banker,
the doctor who lisped, the lizard-eyed priest,
who left me unbought by their wealth. He tugs
at his earlobe and coughs: mute and pink as a pig
with no brain. If I wanted to marry, it wouldn’t be him
with his whiskery wisps and dissolute breath;
but his medals are splendid, pinned to the breast
of a tight-fitting jacket, exactly my size.
I long for the freedom of trousers, the stubble of serge,
cuffs chafing my wrists as I canter the Indian plains
to rescue a curly-haired girl, and press her against
my rough chest, safe from a coarse soldier-boy.
Page(s) 21
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