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  • Between the Penny Dropping and the Penny Landing
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Between the Penny Dropping and the Penny Landing

Roddy Lumsden

The things we want most we will never have.

We learned this when we overheard the song
of a slant moon which wraps the land below,
which courts significance in every corner,
spreads the blueshift, ekes the silver rose

and finds the coin, mid-fall, which will decide
the night for us: the half-chance sounding lower
than a cat step or a spinning leaf or raindrops
meeting on a skylight. Moonlight hones

the bidden street. While the penny spins,
pale beams catch on a lost key in a nest,
roll over roofs and drop into the alley,
and we are shadows in that alley. Only

when I used up all my nos did I say yes.


Roddy Lumsden

from Third Wish Wasted (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2009)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

Tags:

desire fate the moon
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Roddy Lumsden1966 - 2020

Roddy Lumsden was born in St Andrews. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and is a freelance writer, specialising in quizzes and puzzles.
More about Roddy Lumsden

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