Jackie Kay Poems

How they strut about, people in love,
How tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
Their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
They don't remember who they have been.
...

When I got home
I went out into the garden
Liking it when the frost bit
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I did not promise
to stay with you till death do us part, or
anything like that,
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I always wanted to give birth
Do that incredible natural thing
That women do-I nearly broke down
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If ye went tae the tapmost hill, Fiere
Whaur we used tae clamb as girls,
Ye'd see the snow the day, Fiere,
Settling on the hills.
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I always looked out at the world,
And wondered if the world looked back at me,
Standing on the edge of something,
On my face- the wind from the cold sea.
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Dark, the days when the ships came slowly in,
Carrying the baggage from the old past,
Old love letters, promises long since past.
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You're a gem, you're a holy cairn
You're a clattering shaw
You're a Tongland Bridge
...

My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress.
...

The living room remembers Gran dancing to Count Basie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts fighting on Christmas day.
The hall is worried about the loose banister.
The small room is troubled by the missing hamster.
...