You are here

Poem for a Blind Daughter

Author: 
Katrina Naomi

(after Kate Clanchy)

 

We thought you’d like to know:

 

that the colour of my eyes, which is also yours,

smells of the sea, pungent 

with bladder wrack, flecked with an approaching storm,

 

that your father’s hair, which is also yours,

is the sound of a stone lobbed into the deepest well,

splashing, then stilled,

 

that you’re likely to inherit our height,

which tastes of the cool, peat-laden spring

at the furthest reaches of Loch Maree,

 

that the shade of your skin

is smooth as the finest sand of Ullapool,

kissed repeatedly by a loving tide,

 

that you live in a tall, white building,

high above the ocean,

where one day, you will own the brightest eye.

 

From Iota No 85 (2009)