Margaret's Moon by Jackie Kay

Margaret’s Moon

by Jackie Kay

After she died, I swear the sky

Had the most beautiful of all sunsets,

A blush of pink, then red, a glass of red,

Sudden dark and a hammock moon,

Then its faint silhouette, almost secret.

Like half-written, half unsaid.

I had kissed your head in the strange room.

Then later, I blew a kiss to the stars, to regret.

Margaret,

I imagined you lifting your head, your arms,

Loosening them, shedding skin and cells and bone

Till you became all spirit, released

Into the cairns, hills, the braes, barley,

The sea lochs and the sea and at last,

At least it seemed to me, you were free.