Jean Taylor

Alter ego

Christ, she thought, when he opened 
the suitcase, he’s brought the bird outfit.

No other clothes, mind, only a case full 
of magazines, paper, fish glue, scissors. 

Not so much a holiday, then, 
more of a chopped-up weekend workshop.

She’d hoped they might have freed 
themselves from making objets d’art, 
from inhabiting other creatures, 
spent their time walking 
along the coast together before 
the sea mist smothered them.

Christ, he’s put the feathers on now. 
It’s the pink suit, the one with the forked tail 
and those yellow stockings with the enough-to
-make-you-throw-up green stripes. 
He’s a pink peacock strutting across 
the rocks, preening himself.

She knows there will never be room for more 
than one alter ego in this friendship.
She feels the horse that rages within her 
freeze — its mane rigid with icicles.

Inspired by Leonora Carrington’s Portrait of Max Ernst, 1939

Jean Taylor lives in Edinburgh. Her poetry has been published in a range of publications including Pushing Out the Boat, Orbis, Northwords Now, Firth and Envoi as well as in anthologies and online. Her pamphlet Deliberate Sunlight was published by Black Agnes Press in 2019.