The maids are shivering. Outside

they’re talking of snow. I say no

to a fire – it’s an act of surrender.

I can see the bare fields from here

on the balcony. The nights

are growing longer. I know.

At least the harvest is gathered and safe.

– Every thanksgiving

I dance like a Romany. Indian summers;

I giggle and weep. Mother and me

go picnics in the blossoming …

My furs are laid out and waiting.

The maids keep tutting.

I catch myself biting

dead skin from my lips.

I have played with my gloves all day.

I ought just to jump

and meet Hades half way.

from this world and that to come,

but never touch me.

You took me on

but dart like a rabbit into holes

from the edges of my sense

when I turn, walk, turn.

*

I am the hermit whom you keep

at the garden’s end, but I wander.

I am wandering in your acres

where every step, were I

attuned to sense them,

would crush a thousand flowers.

(Hush, that’s not the attitude)

I keep prepared a room and no one comes.

(Love is the attitude)

*

Canary that I am, caged and hung

from the eaves of the world

to trill your praise.

He will not come.

Poor bloodless hands, unclasp.

Stiffened, stone-cold knees, bear me up.

(And yet, and yet, I am suspended

in his joy, huge and helpless

as the harvest moon in a summer sky.)

She’s had enough. She’s come.

Whit, tae this dump? Yes!

She rides the first camel

of a swaying caravan

from her desert sands

to the peat and bracken

of the Pentland hills

across the fit-ba pitch

to the thin mirage

of the swings and chute; scattered with glass.

Breathe that steamy musk

on the Curriehill Road, not mutton-shanks

boiled for broth, nor the chlorine stink

of the swimming pool where skinny girls

accuse each other of verrucas.

In her bathhouses women bear

warm pot-bellied terracotta pitchers

on their laughing hips.

All that she desires, whatever she asks

she will make the bottled dreams

of your wee lasses

look like sweeties.

Spangles scarcely cover

her gorgeous breasts, hanging gardens

jewels, frankincense; more voluptuous

even than Vi-next-door, whose

high-heeled slippers

keeked from dressing gowns

like little hooves, wee tails

of pink fur stuffed in the cleavage of her toes;

more audacious even than Currie Liz

who led the gala floats

through the Wimpey scheme

in a ruby-red Lotus Elan

before the Boys’ Brigade band

and the Brownies’ borrowed coal-truck;

hair piled like candy-floss;

who lifted like hands from the neat wheel

to tinkle her fingers

at her tricks

      among the Masons and the elders and the police.

The cool black skin

of the Bible couldn’t hold her,

nor the atlas green

on the kitchen table,

you stuck with thumbs

and split to fruit hemispheres –

yellow Yemen, Red Sea, Ethiopia. Stick in

with the homework and you’ll be

cliver like yer faither,

but no too cliver,

no above yersel.

See her load those great soft camels

widdershins round the kirk-yaird,

smiling

as she eats

avocados with apostle spoons

she’ll teach us how. But first

she wants to strip the willow

she desires the keys

      to the National Library

she is beckoning

      the lasses

      in the awestruck crowd …

Yes, we’d like to

      clap the camels,

to smell the spice,

admire her hairy legs and

bonny wicked smile, we want to take

PhDs in Persian, be vice

to her president: we want

to help her

      ask some Difficult Questions

she’s shouting for our wisest man

to test her mettle:

      Scour Scotland for a Solomon!

Sure enough, from the back of the crowd

someone growls:

                        whae do you think y’ur?

and a thousand laughing girls and she

draw our hot breath

      and shout:

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA!

So I made great gestures like Jehovah: dividing

land from sea, sea from sky,

                                    my own self from WEE WIFEY

(There, she says, that’s tidy!)

Now I watch her like a dolly

keep an eye,

               and mourn her:

For she and I are angry/cry

                                    because we love each other dearly.

It’s sad to note

                  that without

                                 WEE WIFEY

I shall live long and lonely as a tossing cork.