|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Third Prize winner,The Plough Prize , 2004
White Wife
(There is a she-ghost on the island of Unst, the Shetlands, who appears in cars driven by single men)
I was sober going for my usual nowhere, northwards, to the old ends of the Earth, both headlights taking the piss, sleet clonking the windscreen, like filling a glass. Another kennel of a night with the black dog stinking things rotten and biting my head off, ( I swear that he won’t, but he does). She was on the road, leaning hard into that dark, tugging the car to her, hand over hand along the light beam, but quick as you like, she was inside, the boozy talk of Unst fixing her as White Wife, then taking a front seat. ( I have to laugh now at the ‘wife’ tag, how it works both ways, leaving her easy but with my ring on her finger). By Christ, that face was white, white as a pillowcase. She looked up at me and yawned, maybe from pleasure, as her lips then blew a kiss. The breath reeked: it was of more rottenness, of barley, mouldy from the Flood, of charred long dead yeast. But the intimacy in the shape of her mouth held me:
I remembered an evening dance, fiddle on my shoulder, staring down the ‘f’ hole, the bow quick shovelling the rosin smell that was a soothing balm. Folk stopped to listen as a tale turned on its head; she could never sing but tempted and temptress did the music, hers and my tune slowly pushed the boats out, on a better night than this one, to set men dancing on a silvery voe.
Bruce Barnes
|
and in
the
shop
...
"Somewhere Else" |
|
©
of
all poems featured on this site remains with the
poet |
