The Knot

At Loch Lomond they were king and queen to me,
laying out their bounty on the brae
after the queasy ride from Glasgow, we
children making sick-stops on the way.

Tumbled out, we sprawled at the water's mouth
where light ate shade and made us ravenous.
With a flourish, Her Majesty untied the cloth
to set the parathas free. She did, she does,

undoes this deep red knot of hurt in the heart.
Today, when scars have been allowed to deepen
around a silence, wrenching our lives apart,
she has come back to us at the loch to open

out the tangle of her dying, the mistake,
the high, the low, the road we did not take.