The Unheard Testimony of Agnes Wilson

When the last of the drinkers
sink into waxen skin, adrift
like sea-wrecked timber,
and tinkers leave the tavern 
to sing in darker corners,
you smoor the fire—bank heat
for travellers asleep in rented cots—
swing open the door to empty
the night’s slops from a tin pail.
Grappling hands clamp your mouth,
yank fistfuls of hair from your scalp;
tear your apron, rip through linen
to the stained scraps of an underskirt.
Young voices skid like stones on ice, 
break without forecast.
The first kick from a boot,
the second a shod hoof. 
Forced astride a knotted trunk 
lashed to the flanks of restive horses, 
you are driven past the kirkyard’s towering ash 
to the southern edge of the village.
Left to repent naked by the trickle 
of Cessnock Water, the raw rage
between your legs subdues 
the ripening bruises on your back.
Lads of the Auld Licht, 
she has always lamented
nights spent serving 
foul ale and stale flesh
to your fathers.