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.
