This poem first appeared in New Writing Dundee 6 (Ed. Karen Graham)

 

When I was a little savage,

the heather biting my calves

and my shins raw as meat,

I was myself.

 

When I became a lady

I bore marriage, babies,

breaking my own heart out of spite,

throwing myself into thunder claps

until my lungs packed up

and the house devoured me.

 

The woodworms munched my bones

clean, my tiny spirit hands

grasping at cracked glass,

wanting to get in where I

had always wanted to get out.

 

I wander, sleepless, in a daze,

calling his name, searching for

his broken teeth in the dark

as the moths gather round me.

 

There are other girls here too,

girls in many different dresses,

breasts swollen with milk,

bands heavy on their fingers.

 

We were all somebody’s daughter once,

and we were all terribly,

terribly civilized.

 

This poem was originally displayed in the D’Arcy Thompson Museum, Dundee

 

A Gyre falcon (the world’s largest)

stands reduced to the fate of a carriage-clock,

no longer turning and turning

but still and silent and encased,

forever counting the hours

inside a bell jar.

This poem first appeared in ‘Book of Dreams’ (United Press)

 

These were the spells the children knew,

the ones they learnt in that place

where the sand sucks in the sea.

 

The heads bobbed up like seals

and drew closer, their large fish tails

of golden scales rippling,

their torsos greener than ours

and more beautiful.

 

They taught the little ones

to swim deeper than anyone else,

to make the fishermen’s nets

swell fat with fish,

to turn the tide to their advantage

and make sure no sea-storm

would ever harm their kin.

 

All this they taught the children

whose lungs filled up with salty gulps,

until they swum with webs of flesh

and gills between their ribs.

This poem first appeared in Grund 13 (ed. R. D. Lewis)

 

With every fight,

our branches shuddered off

more leaves in fright.

This poem first appeared in Grund 13 (ed. R. D. Lewis)

 

After he left,

the skin of my torso

shrink-wrapped my ribs.

My spine rose

to my back’s surface

in little waves.

Shadows hung

around my eyes

in crescent moons.

My hair grew pressed

against my skull.

My lips grew pale,

and fell away in flakes.

Before the mirror,

I stood astonished.

Until my curves

bloomed full once more,

and I grew back

into myself.

This poem first appeared in Grund 14 (ed. R. D. Lewis)

 

The steam stripping her of make-up,

she turns the tap with her toe,

surveying the unlocked door.

 

He lies, belly against bed,

flicking the pages of a magazine

in which he has little interest.

 

She sighs, the water weighing on her chest,

the foam sparse. She lies exposed,

breasts breaking the surface,

less buoyant than before.

 

She hears him cough, forever phlegmatic,

hears the springs creak.

She knows he will be standing at the window,

his finger and thumb an L-shape around his chin.

 

Her feet leave prints in her wake

as she walks towards him,

the droplets sparkling on her skin.

 

‘You’ll ruin the carpet,’ he says, not looking.

 

This poem first appeared in Gutter 3 (ed. Colin Begg and Adrian Searle)

Some say he was born down here,

that he’s been submerged since birth.

Perhaps because his skin is so white,

perhaps because his eyes are so large.

 

They say she gave birth behind the bar.

They say she wet the baby’s head with whisky.

Now his eyes carry rings,

now his stomach hides his belt.

 

He traces a cloth over the wood,

polishing so hard the varnish fades.

It could be driftwood, this dry slab,

washed up from some broken ship.

 

He looks from under leaden lids,

surveys a young man counting coppers;

he is lining them up on the table,

little lights to reel her in,

stars reflected in a black sea.

 

This poem first appeared in Dundee Writes 1 (ed. Josephine Jules Andrews)

 

I sit in the sun parlour.

I am barely here:

a cloud of dust,

a ring left by a teacup.

 

He sent me here.

I was sick, he said, truly sick.

Hysterical.

 

I had been to an art gallery.

I had been unrestrained.

 

The paintings, he said,

were the works of madmen,

and those who love them

madder still.

 

We are not allowed in the dispensary,

but I go there.

 

I touch the shining scales,

the brown bottles,

the jars of salt,

the barrels with their buckled wood.

 

I run my fingers over them

and think of drinking something sour.

 

This poem first appeared in New Writing Dundee 5 (ed. Rachel Marsh and Amy Kimmond)

 

I look better in mirrors, she thinks.

It’s something in the flip of my features,

something in the tilt of the glass.

 

‘Move the pin up a notch, tight,

as tight as that, that’s right,

so tight the leather squeaks.

I could wrap one hand round that waist.

I could put gold round your finger,

tie you up tight like a gift.’

 

Before breakfast my stomach is flat,

she aches, it swells as the hours slide.

I’ll buy tights that suck it back,

hold me in close like a hug.

 

‘You won’t wear heels tonight,

I like you yards below,

I like your eyes looking up.

I tell you when your roots grow black.’

 

There is hell in the hourglass, she knows,

it drains away too quick, cuts me to the quick.

When the roots run to grey it will end.

 

I sleep wearing make-up,

he’s never seen my face,

I set my alarm early.

 

‘Nearly there,’ a swig of black wine,

hands encircling an intestinal pang.

‘…you’re nearly there, you know.’

 

‘Just one more notch,’

hot breath on the neck,

‘and you’re perfect.’

This poem first appeared in ‘For A’That’, a Dundee University Press anthology celebrating Robert Burns (ed. Kirsty Gunn and Anna Day). It was later selected by The Scotsman as their ‘Poem of the Month’ (January 2010).

 

The mouse and the louse

crawl between continents.

Holy hypocrisy spans centuries

as the cries of bastard weans

echo in the cities.

The mountain still springs daisies

as the Twa Dogs bite.

A face now stamps banknotes

where once only letters ran.

Through fluctuating fashions

he stood within the frame,

bowed head and bent knee

made meaningless, dulled to archaism

when poet and people are one.

This peasant did not kneel

and will never kneel while we sing.