Here, with a nod to the looming Edinburgh Festival, is another poem from A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening, the forthcoming New Writing Scotland 30 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, £9.95).
The author Natalie Poyser is an education officer, musician and writer, based in the city.
WALKING ALONE IN PRINCES STREET GARDENS
Thronging alongside the walkway,
rose bushes clump their white offerings
into bouquets, each one unthrown,
destined to be held all summer
until their tips brown and decay.
Benches enclose couples
enjoying the first real taste
of summer's heat. I pass
an older couple linking hands
in an over-shoulder hold,
like they're about to stand, and dance
a Gay Gordons about the garden.
A much younger couple
sit face to face, crossed-legged
snug in their private canoe;
they're sailing, sharing sushi,
him tearing the wasabi sachet,
her feeding him with cheap chopsticks,
rice and fish slipping through the slats.
They peer overboard and laugh.
I march on to a slow beat, staring ahead,
as if my father will be giving me away
at the cement walkway's end,
where the shallow stone steps rise back
into the rushing street.
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