Islay: Your last holiday
As he fixed scales in Port Askaig,
paid in single malts and country charm,
we loitered, impostors on an island farm.
All at sea on a serenity of sheep,
we played monopoly, box tatty and frail.
Its missing chance cards, no get-out-of-jail.
The breakfast tablecloth, starch-stiff white.
Eggs warm and feathered from the coop.
You bequeathed a rich fresh orange juice.
The geese beyond the window prattled
of another kind of hard life: muddy births,
rough roads, long aurora-lit nights.
You were tended, for once and at last
by the farmer’s wife. Kinship and grace.
You being looked after looked out of place.
Karen Hodgson Pryce lives in Aviemore, Scotland. Her poetry is in Mslexia, Lighthouse, Northwords Now, Black Bough Poetry, Butcher’s Dog and Ink, Sweat & Tears as well as numerous anthologies including the upcoming Federation of Writers (Scotland) Anthology, 2024.