Stroanfreggan

If this were my house
I would check the thermometer outside the kitchen window
and log the temperature
in a hide-bound notebook every day
I would worry about the melting of ice-caps
and not the complicating of lines on my face.
My laughter would shake the swifts down from the eaves
would make white sails of the sheets.

If this were my house
I would learn not to lean on the Rayburn, and forget
often enough to blister
fresh bracelets for my wrist each year.
I would take an Open University distance learning course
in taxidermy
and replace all the dolls in my mothers’ dollshouse
with stuffed and bonneted mice.

If this were my house I’d spend
whole days by the stream persuading trout
to lift their quicksilver bellies into my palm.
Lambs would unaccountably vanish
from my neighbour’s fields.
My infrequent visitors would pick lead shot from the hors d’ouvres
I’d play Charlie Parker loud enough to frighten the birds.

If this were my house I’d fill it with children
my wary minnow brood.
I’d teach them to distrust strangers
to patrol the boundaries of our land. Sometimes
you would catch sight of yourself in them and wonder
what blood led here, to you.
Brown-skinned in the summer, pale as cave-fish in the winter,
we would burn the hearth rug after each birth
Another line of notches would begin its slow chase up the kitchen door.

If this were my house
I’d stuff the tyres of your car with glass
every time you wanted to leave
I’d fill your mouth with sweetness every night
the moon weeping mercury down across my belly.
You would look out of the window at nightfall
and see me walking gladly to meet you
from out of the soughing trees
a rifle across my arm and my handbag full of rabbits.

If this were my house I would forget my childrens’ names
and braid their milk teeth into my hair
so that it rattled and hissed around you in the dark.
I would keep two black Newfoundlands
called Hecate and Circe. Every year
I would threaten to sacrifice you on the last day of summer
and pour out your blood to fertilise my garden
Every year
you would not quite be sure
if I was joking.