BEARDS

A faceful of poems by Kirsty Turkington (female, cat lover, me) and Stephen O'Toole (25, clean shaven)

if i could crawl into your beard and make a nest,
i would

if only you'd get rid of the these bloody harvest mice

i wiped some homous off your moustache, gus
gosh you're delicious


i went into the bathroom after you and covered my face in your beard clippings

you looked at me in disgust and told me that you'd trimmed some other part of your body

my goatee entered into an arm wrestle with
cavendish's mutton chops
my goatee was completely overwhelmed. hair everywhere. surrounded.
it could barely hang on.
the chops got it in a clamp, while cavendish sat back in his deckchair,
with a pimms in his crotch, rubbing the blankness around his ears
and blowing kisses at my wife

i have two lesbian mothers. i never really learned how to shave properly. i sported henious facial hair for over a decade.

handlebar moustaches
soul patches
mutton chops
and sideburns that covered my entire face

i wore your beard as my wedding dress.
nice for you to know, i thought, that i'd

married the wrong man.

it's shame you went grey so early
after i'd left you.

I knew a bearded collie who,
after his mother died,
was never the same again.

he shaved off his thick fur
and children refused to pat his
razor nicked, toilet paper daubed
skin

a beard seems inevitable
if i stay in this cave
but then maybe you'd like that?

a week after you left, i started to go deaf

eventually, i went to the doctors.
he stared into my right ear, inserted his tweezers,
and pulled out one of your beard hairs

my eyes welled up as dropped it in
the 'human waste' bin

From afar, your beard looks soft and strokeable

Up close it's wiry, prickly, and leaves rashes on my face

This says a lot about you (i.e. you have a beard)

Things that can't grow a beard:

drawings of beards

a 40th birthday party

a warm trouser press

toffee

you

Things that I love:

All of the above, except you