The snow has not yet drowned

in thunder, lightning, or in rain.

The snow has not yet drowned

the garden completely.

The house is bat-black, air still,

bedroom doors unopened.

Small breathing rises in each room –

my daughter, my son

asleep among butterfly wings,

blue stars, waning moons.

Ice-animals creep across the window –

see how their footprints leave

thousands of spilt needles

pricking the dark at every turn.

On nights like these only the fresh blood

of my three poinsettias can be heard –

when shall we three meet again

in thunder, lightning, or in rain?

© Marion McCready

Picture 10135997, illustration, circa 1840, image copyright Mary Evans

Marion McCready lives in Dunoon, Argyll. She won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013 and the Melita Hume Poetry Prize for her first full-length collection Tree Language which was published by Eyewear Publishing in 2014. Her second collection Madame Ecosse was published in 2017 also by Eyewear Publishing.