Excerpt: Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath

She loved him with a fierce appetite
Patting and prodding his flesh
Like a reliable, well-trained chef
And once, while they embraced,
She pinched the tender meat behind his hip,
Said “If we were stranded on a desert island,
And I had to eat you,
This is where I would begin.”
Over the years she tasted every part of him,
Sleepily chewed the lobes of his ears
In bed in his arms on cold winter mornings,
Licked the jam from his fingers at breakfast,
Then nibbled the tips to still her hunger,
And often she told him he was so sweet
That she could eat him alive.
When he died she
Feasted for the last time,
Spit up bones and hair like an owl pellet
And slept with it under her pillow for luck.


Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath is a performance for three voices recorded and produced by Chris Brookes as an audio CD for Rattling Books. It is voiced by Anita Best, Rick Boland and Robert Joy.

Listen to a clip from Coasting Trade.