Child
The field has drowned and turned
into a tideless sea.
Flower shapes rise from
a toddler’s broken ribs.
Beyond the head of a loch
a broken swing hangs from a tree.
His body bruises in the dark,
he has learned to be quiet.
Clouds drag their shadows
over hills, ridges, fields of sheep.
His eyes are the colour of fists,
he has learned to be still.
I’m up to my knees in nothing
but the bare November breeze.
His hand prints on the windowpanes,
the trail of his sticky sleeves.
I’m chasing after the cat’s eyes
of a child I cannot see.
Where have all the leaves gone,
where are the streets of leaves?
(published in Glimmer (Cinnamon Press) and Vintage Sea Calder Wood Press)
Marion McCready lives in Dunoon, Argyll. Her poems have appeared in a variety of publications including The Edinburgh Review, Northwords Now, The Glasgow Herald and New Linear Perspectives. Calder Wood Press published her pamphlet collection, Vintage Sea, in 2011.
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