The Kelpie

Around midnight, the hour when pain
reasserts its dominance, a voice
behind the curtain screening
my bed from the next patient’s:
an intonation penetrating abstract thoughts
of distance, time-lapse; tempered by the Haar,
the briny sea-mist from the Firth of Forth;
the violet breath of highlands, heather
cushioning their callused flanks:
a Scots accent, pitched low and sweet,
and I’m at Hawthornden once more;
or visiting the Isle of Skye, awe-
struck by the vertiginous,
where ancient rock aspires to soar,
hang-gliders channel dragonflies—

I call out to the Scottish nurse—
blonde, ethereal, blue-eyed—
just to hear that voice, that accent,
and we reminisce awhile.
She leaves me with reflections
on the Kelpie— legendary beast—
the fierce flesh-eating water-horse,
shape-shifting, beguiling, sly,
luring victims with its beauty,
its compelling, ruthless eye;
dragging them into its lair,
never to breathe air again.
Only the owner of a Kelpie’s bridle
can resist the creature’s wiles,
their grisly consequence.

She leaves. I’ve brought her close to tears
with talk of those ensorcelled waters.
As for me, time-travelling, I’ve left
the confines of my bed, sloughed
my immobility, to walk the glen
at Hawthornden, along the Esk
below the keep; stroll to villages
and farms: a bygone crisis of survival,
carefree as I convalesced; never sensing
that the kelpie, known generically as pain,
a predator immune to time,
would lie in wait somewhere ahead:
shape-shifting, beguiling, sly—
to ambush me again—

Jena Woodhouse has seven published poetry titles. Her unpublished collection, Tidings from
the Pelagos: A Polyphony was a finalist in the Greek-based Eyelands International Book
awards 2024. She has been a finalist three times in the Montreal International Poetry Prize.