Amy B. Moreno resides in Scotland after having spent some adventurous years living abroad. She is an experienced translator and interpreter, now moving on to writing poetry and prose for both adult and child readers. She has been published in The Scottish Book Trust and in several online publications and blogs.
Tae the Burrymen an’ the Bogeymen
This body of plucked flesh and epidermis
of bread and wounds and awkward surplus
is outside, but I’m rattlin’ about in my own head
Flipped inside out, like the scraped-back skin
from a baked tattie, exposed in the bin
Picked apart by scavengers
with sharp little incisors
following me, as I’m surveyed by
Birds on a wire
chirping out the dial-up internet tone
An’ I’m covered in bickerin’ burrymen
twisted, prickly
scratchy burrs
It feels like polymer
wool between my teeth, and a hair forever coiled in my throat
Smells like a place I’m homesick for where I’ll never go,
and have never even been
Looks like an itch I can’t scratch
deep inside the bone
My hands are red raw,
Ma heid’s mince, and then she answers the door
and begins to speak and
brings out, not the best china
but thankful mugs built for comfort
an extra teaspoon of sugar, you look knackered sweetheart
a Mr Kipling’s Bakewell tart?
Do Not Feed the Beast
he lurks behind the sleekit skirting boards
or wades in fridge shadows
with a warning snarl
Lurid tail and skittering toes
I feel her chatter above and below
Her hushing blether of neighbours and prices and weather
I’m a letter,
sliding into a warm envelope
and a talcum-pink powder puff dampens the brawl
quieting the hairball, I hear
that fellow-mortal with nightmare feet
You can find more of Amy’s writing via her Twitter, @Amy_B_Moreno.