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  • Margaret’s Moon
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Margaret’s Moon

Jackie Kay

After she died, I swear the sky
Had the most beautiful of all sunsets,
A blush of pink, then red, a glass of red,
Sudden dark and a hammock moon,
Then its faint silhouette, almost secret.
Life half-written, half unsaid.
I had kissed your head in the strange room.
Then later, I blew a kiss to the stars, to regret.

Margaret,

I imagined you lifting your head, your arms,
Loosening them, shedding skin and cells and bone
Till you became all spirit, released
Into the cairns, hills, the braes, barley,
The sea lochs and the sea and at last,
At least it seemed to me, you were free.


Jackie Kay

from Bantam (Edinburgh: Picador, 2017).
Reproduced with the permission of the author.

 

 

Tags:

bereavement Best Scottish Poems 2017 death metamorphosis sunset the moon

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2017. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2017 was Roddy Woomble.

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Best Scottish Poems 2017

edited by Roddy Woomble
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Jackie Kayb.1961

Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and was appointed Scotland's Makar in 2016.
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