Menopause Is

Menopause is pizza. I’m looking forward to it, anxiously watching the oven, preparing the salad, placing plate, knife, fork on the table. When I take it out and put it on the plate it is topped with anchovies and pineapple and rocket and shaved bloody parmesan. That’s not what I call a pizza.

Menopause is a blue whale. Like Alan Davies I think it’s the answer then the klaxons go off I realise I’m wrong, yet again everybody in the audience laughs.

Menopause is a red-nettle. Dusky flowers nestle in green, promising joy. I reach out to pluck them, its soft fuzz bites me, leaves me with weals redder than its flowers and a pain that goes all the way down to my bones.

Menopause is an open fire. I’ve laid it well: firelighter, paper, kindling, coals, and a couple of logs to make leaping flames. It takes me years to find the matches. I strike one, put it to the paper. There is a brief blaze, then it sputters out.