The Rescuers
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite, his weight a
nautilus shell, face pinched in
perpetual sleep, one silk
eyelid pulled awry as dawn
held him at the edge of our
lives – it felt like All Souls Day
on a summer morning. Since
then, we waft wasps carefully
out the window, set woodlice
free, chase cats from wounded birds,
watch out for stray toddlers in
the park or chicks fallen from
their nests. We’re always on hand
to haul them gently back from
invisible boundaries.
Morag Smith’s short fiction has been extensively published, but she moved to poetry about four years ago and since then has been published in e-zines, magazines and anthologies, including the Scottish Poetry Library’s Best Scottish Poems of 2023, Poetry Ireland Review, Crannog, The Scotsman and Gutter. She is the winner of the 2021 Paisley Book Festival /Janet Coates memorial poetry prize, was highly Commended in the 2020 Ginkgo poetry prize and shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry prize 2022. Her first pamphlet , Background Noises, about the re-wilding and human history of the partly abandoned site of Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital near Paisley, Scotland, was published by Red Squirrel Press in November 2022.