Wanting to breathe life into their own dead babies They took her dreams, collected words from one Who did their suffering for them. They fingered through her mental underwear With every piece she wrote. Wanting her naked. Wanting to know what made her. Then tried to feather up the bird again. The vulture with its bloody head Inside its own belly, Sucking up its own juice, Working out its own shape, Its own reason, Its own death. While their mothers lay in quiet graves Squared out by those green cut pebbles And flowers in a jam jar, they dug mine up. Right down to the shells I scattered on her coffin. They turned her over like meat on coals To find the secrets of her withered thighs And shrunken breasts. They scooped out her eyes to see how she saw, And bit away her tongue in tiny mouthfuls To speak with her voice. But each one tasted separate flesh, Ate a different organ, Touched other skin. Insisted on being the one Who knew best, Who had the right recipe. When she came out of the oven They had gutted, peeled And garnished her. They called her theirs. All this time I had thought She belonged to me most.

--Frieda Hughes, Wooroloo, 1998