Questions you won’t answer about mending your roof
Do you scrinch your eyes
to the stone as you straddle the spine?
Do you look away as you finger the gaps
between flags?
Your shoulders are braced against the wind.
I know that.
Do you slide your tongue over your lip
as you stir lime and sand?
As you slice and slap?
As you scrape a layer on your hand
to feel if it dries without a crack?
Behind this shell which won’t wash away
do you sing? Do you hum as you cover
a patch of stone with your palm?
Do you pray for your bed to be warm,
for no buckets or pails anymore in your home?
Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. In 2017 she received a New Writers’ Award for poetry from the Scottish Book Trust.