Keeping Orchids - by
The orchids my mother gave me when we first met
/ are still alive, twelve days later. Although
/
/ some of the buds remain…
Curriculum Level: SQA National 5 texts
Gap Year - by
Gap Year
/ (for Mateo)
/
/ I
/ I remember your Moses basket before you were born.
/ I’d stare at the fleecy white sheet for days, weeks,
/ willing…
Lucozade - by
My mum is on a high bed next to sad chrysanthemums.
/ ‘Don’t bring flowers, they only wilt and die.’
/ I am scared…
My Grandmother’s Houses - by
1
/ She is on the second floor of a tenement.
/ From her front room window you see the cemetery.
/
/ Her bedroom is my…
Basking Shark - by
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
/ To have it rise with a slounge out of the…
Visiting Hour - by
The hospital smell
/ combs my nostrils
/ as they go bobbing along
/ green and yellow corridors.
/
/ What seems a corpse
/ is trundled into a lift and…
Assisi - by
The dwarf with his hands on backwards
/ sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
/ on tiny twisted legs from which
/ sawdust might run,
/ outside the…
Trio - by
Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening
/ a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights –…
Winter (EM) - by
The year goes, the woods decay, and after,
/ many a summer dies. The swan
/ on Bingham’s pond, a ghost, comes and goes.
/ It…
In the Snack-bar - by
A cup capsizes along the formica,
/ slithering with a dull clatter.
/ A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack-bar.
/ An old man…
Good Friday - by
Three o’clock. The bus lurches
/ round into the sun. ‘D’s this go –‘
/ he flops beside me – ‘right along Bath Street?
/ -…
Glasgow 5 March 1971 - by
With a ragged diamond
/ of shattered plate-glass
/ a young man and his girl
/ are falling backwards into a shop-window.
/ The young man’s face
/ is bristling…