Water’s edge
Every path has two lives:
one without you. Beyond furrowed fields
the farm’s spine leans against sky.
As talisman, I choose a twig
the length of my hand, every knot
and twist of bark alive with moss.
How much more I see in silence:
a seam of carmine leaves
tracing the contours of the bank;
the steel of a heron’s wing lifting
into air, as though it understood
being blown back on course.
Edinburgh-based Jay Whittaker’s debut poetry collection, Wristwatch, was published by Cinnamon Press in October 2017. She writes about transition, resilience, grief, breast cancer, and LGBT+ lives (including her own). Her poems have been published in a wide range of magazines. www.jaywhittaker.uk
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