What happens if your lover is both larger and fiercer than you?

Poet and artist Frieda Hughes writes about her hen-pecked, sight-impaired scops owl – and his lady love

Retreating beneath the lid as if suddenly shy / Of the light, of its ‘otherness’, as if the weight of the lid / And the cares of being smally feathered with a larger mate (Frieda Hughes)

Scops owl and the invisible vet

His orange moons mismatch; one discolours, darkens,

Turns brown, retreating beneath the lid as if suddenly shy