in the stream;1look, the duck-rabbits swim between.The Mill Raceat Granta Placetosses them from form to form,dissolving bodies in the spume. Given A and see2find be3(look at you, don’t look at me)4Given B, see A and C.that’s what metaphor5is for. Date and placein the expression of a face6provide the framefor an instinct to rename,7to try to […]
mirror images, mirror people how can I escape them,
my own reflection in the water of time?
the cyclops who survives on unspoken thoughts?
I imitated pitch perfectly, declined with
authority and wondered why people only
stared.
At night I am visited by fish, their tiny bodies
pulled from a book.
Artist’s publication
MacKerral, that was one hard winter.
Your father died on the moor road,
his bag of meal buried under snows.
Death relieved him of his load.
I say her phrases to myself
in my head
or under the shallows of my breath,
restful shapes moving.
The day and ever. The day and ever.
When I was eight, I was forced south. Not long after, when I opened my mouth, a strange thing happened. I lost my Scottish accent. Words fell off my tongue: eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit stummer, teuchter, heidbanger, so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma, shut yer geggie or I’ll gie you […]
Fae stooshie tae fankle tae bouroch tae dreck / we’re steeped in the downpour of dialect.
/ …
A bloody good hiding
/ Another egg chipped
/ …
Revising my visa essay,
applying for three more years
here, I read my own scribbled words
Now, perched on this polar height
When all sap lies quiet and does not climb,
When all seems dead, I cultivate
The wild garden rioting in my memory
