My Skittish Scottish Accent

Where do you hide? Why do you leap
away mid Atlantic and parachute

down to Iceland — did someone laugh,
or curse, or put you naked on a stage?

Och, no, the world adores a burr, "r"s
tumbling out, acrobats at the circus,

rowdy, manic with energy,
charging around Ardnamurchan.

And the "ch"s at the back of the throat,
"braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht"

— now there's a lullaby! My Uncle
John abandoned Caledonia, married

a lass with a creamy Devon voice,
and each year his Scots accent swelled

operatically till he outpassed the entire
clan, even the Glaswegians. You move

in contrary direction, master of camouflage,
present as soon as there's talk of haggis

or Loch Linnhe, but somewhere else
when poets gather. Come back. I miss

you. We could be brave together, skin
flushing purple in the absence of thistles.

Annie Boutelle
Green Mountains Review
New Series: Vol. XIX, No. 1

Copyright © 2006, Green Mountains Review
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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