Laura Stanley

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Defeather

You spend far too long
pulling apart

the innards 
of four-letter words. 

So what if a woman
is called a bird?

An old mother hen,
a chick to shoot 

and pluck until pure
pink, to stuff

and line up 
in a glass cabinet,

a row of sitting fucks.
Your knees bleed

raw on the kitchen floor,
but how your head warms,

golden, 
crispy, inside the oven.

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LAURA STANLEY is a lesbian poet from the West Midlands. She is currently studying a MA in Creative Writing. In 2020, she won the Staunch Short Story Prize.