I’m Gran holding a long receipt,
her got-the-shopping gaze
on hoodies in the Forth,
clinker and birch,
my dirt sleeves filled with standing wet.
She knows – I know – everything dries.
Eras give cameras that elk-stare look.
The copper sun bullfrogs.

         What will be beautifully bare
         again teems now with bacterial dots
         and Gala Bingo, whose Leith lair
         is home to Soccer Wives and slots.

I shoot my hand into the cloud-cuffed East
and all I’ve on strips off like paint.
Till then, a bird-steepled and astringent
dawn strikes every note
you curious Sunday leaguers need,
among grass topcoats, marine carbonates and dew,
the stop-start whizz of brief creatures
whose loss I sign in skeleton.

         Gran looks out over wrinkled water.
         John Lewis and James Hutton agree:
         she is the road into my mirror.
         I am her burial at sea.