A Poem For Friday

“In my country” by Jackie Kay:

walking by the waters

down where an honest river

shakes hands with the sea,

a woman passed round me

in a slow, watchful circle,

as if I were a superstition;

or the worst dregs of her imagination,

so when she finally spoke

her words spliced into bars

of an old wheel. A segment of air.

Where do you come from?

“Here,” I said. “Here. These parts.”

(From Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, edited by Neil Astley, Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. Photo by Andrew Rollinger)