The Scottish Exodus

Hello Glasgow--From the Dow Jones Pub

Hello Glasgow--
you’ve never met me
but allow me to
introduce myself.
I extend my hand
like a limp prick
drenched in vinegar:
sour to suck
and equally bad to
touch.
Before I came here
I used to make jokes
about wearing a trench
coat and walking
along the Thames
singing a sad Inxs
song--
And I even mixed up
Yeats and Yates!
Ugly—you’ll say
Ugly American as the
Tartan my clan
doesn’t have-
Unless you count that
Old Ku Klux as
part of it.
Last night in the Dow
Jones Pub down on
Sauchiehall with Matt
and Andrew I put
1 lb. into the juke so
I could play some Otis.
Otis, I told Matt and
Andrew, will hit me
deep down in here--
I’m playing it because
this is my second
soon to be third whisky
in Scotland
and I can dig the
Otis right about now.
Andrew and Matt turn
remembering earlier in
the day when we were
at the Virginian
for lunch-- the place
downstairs and up the street
of where I’m not
allowed to live yet--
and I remarked about
the brown plaster ceiling,
We’re inside a cake
this looks like
Duncan Heinz deluxe frosting.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland--
Will the real Lewis
Carroll please stand up?
Please stand up?
Please stand up?
The boy at the juke
at the Dow Jones
had one song left to
choose and he let
me choose it—
which—when trusting
a stranger is a lot
to trust them with:
like saying here’s
$20.00 would you watch
it for me for an hour
while I take off?—
Well, I took the
money and ran, man.
On my way back
to Matt and Andrew,
second whisky,
5 songs of my own
chosen and 1 song
courtesy of the boy in his
Sainsbury’s polo--
He stops me asks
what song I’ve picked.
and I said
Otis Redding, and the
Boy in the Sainsbury’s
Polo-- with all the other
Sainsbury’s posse--
said, you can’t sit here
then.
So I went back to my
seat and sniffed and
sipped the second
whisky
until I could feel my
sinuses becoming
pregnant with the amber.
And my songs came on--
Good old ones:
Prince and his
Fruity raspberry beret,
and two songs of Otis.
So I tried a little
Tenderness-- like Otis-- went over
to the Sainsbury’s boy
who let me pick a
song of his and I
tried to give him
50p to pick a song--
Here man, have two
songs, on me.
He told me no,
I should choose the
Song again. Whatsa
Matter, I said ,
Do you not like Otis?
Aye, I do like him,
but it’s been ages
since I’ve heard it,
he told me.
More the reason, then,
to pick Otis.
But I took my 50p
back to the second
whisky, back to Matt and
Andrew and I
didn’t choose anymore
songs:
because no one would be
able to stomach
the sound of my mother’s
song earlier that
morning when we spoke
of my grandfather’s
funeral and how for
once he looked human
instead of like a ghost,
but he looked like a
ghost because he had
on his WW II uniform and
a badge of
letters that said hero.
No one could stomach
that song.
And since I wasn’t
up to pretending to
be Michael Hutchence--
Who’s Australian anyway
and not even
British--
I put my 50p away and
chose no more songs.
I accepted the wink
from the Sainsbury’s
boy when he left
like a rose in my
heart,
and I concentrated
on those strange blue
lights stuck in the
pavement outside and
how they make
everything seem fuller
like my grandfather’s
cheek five years ago.
Like dawn.

Copyright ©Andrea K. Devenney, 2009, all rights reserved.