Hilda Sheehan has published one full-length collection, The Night My Sister Went to Hollywood (Cultured Llama, 2013) and two chapbooks. She lived in Thailand for ten years, and has worked as a psychiatric nurse and Montessori teacher. Sheehan studied English and creative writing at the Open University. She edits the poetry magazine Domestic Cherry and is the director of the Swindon Poetry Festival. ‘Father Carrot’ was first published in the pamphlet Frances and Martine (Dancing Girl Press & Studio, 2014) and later included in her chapbook The God Baby (Dancing Girl Press & Studio, 2017).
These vegetables don’t want to be chopped. This one, here, especially. Vegetables don’t know anything, I need them chopped by six-thirty for this. Martine points at the hole in the kitchen. The carrot is far too familiar, I will put it to one side. I need all of the carrots! You won’t miss this one. I’m sure it’s my father back from the dead. Just leave it there to stare at the world. Frances places the carrot on the windowsill and draws a face on it with a Sharpie. You haven’t chopped one vegetable. What an ugly mess this people as vegetable disease you suffer from. No, I am sure they are resisting me through psychic messaging. I feel their pain… Charles, Jules, Peter … all of them there along the windowsill. Have any of them spoken? Frances stares at Martine, picks up the knife and chops the father carrot in two.
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