How to domesticate a pirate [Fed Square remix by Mark Lawrence]

From a Creative Commons licensed original by Danielle Wood, as part of the Remix My Lit project.

Get used to being caressed by hands that make you feel the same as the rough-hardness of deck timber.

Stand in a supermarket queue and pass judgement. You catch yourself despising a woman in beige three-quarter pants because she has filled her trolley with

• interest rates
• the car service
• defined benefit
• and your fabric softener.

And because, when she talks to her toddler, she refers to herself in the third person.

Who wormed the dog?

Else, else, else. There is nothing but else in your head these days, and else is all the language that is left between you and the man who comes home to you each night now in a suit.

When your husband comes out of the bedroom in the morning and asks you a question, grenades explode.

He only wants to know if you’ve ironed his shirt yet.

Will you push your canoe away from the rocks, over the aqua shallows to the navy depths where you couldn’t hear even if someone were shouting at you to come back to shore?

No, the nappies can’t last until Saturday.