An Accident: / The Empty Bothy by Struan Gow

An Accident:

The flowers are wilted,

the photos faded, the food

webbed with white/green mould.

From the radio, only static,

muffled, under snow.

The only other sounds

are the steady—

tink, 

tink, 

tink,

of a dripping tap,

on the stained porcelain sink,

as it chips away,

the thick well of blood.

And the slowing breathing

of the woman below it.

 

The Empty Bothy

 

There is an empty house (nameless but to a few) 

that hides from the sky

in a field of pallid grey. 

Its walls sag, deep-settled into 

sucking peat—and past beyond it.

Through its loose bricks crawl veins of trembling leaf;

who dance in sets of three 

and care not for the voiceless songbirds 

which hide within. 

There it watches, with eyes of beaten glass and breathless oil.

waiting through ruin. Waiting through time. 

waiting to be repleted.

 

When the sun dies, the house is not so empty. 

open mouth and wide eyes,

the farmer knows the trick of dying light,

and fables of will o’ wisp agone.

Yet still the lanterns flicker,

and windows shine like bared teeth.

The rain is a soft

pitter-patter, 

polite on yellowed waterproof. 

The farmer’s feet shuffle forwards,

              to fill that empty bothy some more.

 

Struan Gow is a Scottish writer currently living in St Andrews. His writing usually focuses on the self and his heritage. His work can be found within Acumen’s Young Poets section and is soon to come to Inklight’s newest journal and FlashBack Fiction’s summer release.