GREAT GOD QUETZALCOATL GREEN
HOT-WATER BOTTLE COVER

No more eiderdowns for me,
no extra sheets or electric socks –
there’s a new accoutrement in my blanket-box:
I’ve got a great god Quetzalcoatl green hot-water bottle cover –
a present from my aunt and uncle from their trip to Central America –
Uncle Barry Auntie Erica:
both explorers, that’s how they met –
they both simultaneously discovered the source of the River Ganges.
Half an hour either way they’d’ve missed each other,
wouldn’t have met.
Life’s funny like that.
Anyway, they said “Rachel, we’ve got you
a great god Quetzalcoatl green hot-water bottle cover;
we hope you like it –
it was either that or a pillowcase shaped like the god of spring
with a skull for a face and his liver on the outside,
but they didn’t do them in lavender and we know you like lavender.
But I like my great god Quetzalcoatl green hot-water bottle cover:
one half’s feathery, the other half’s scaly,
because of the dual nature of the deity –
part-bird, part-snake, part-snake, part-bird.
The feathery half keeps me awake, tickles my middle makes me laugh;
the scaly half gives me nightmares about lizards
and in that respect it’s a lot like life –
partly nice, partly nasty. It’s a metaphor.