Water Kelpie, by Sarah Gibbons

Water Kelpie

They caught him walking the long side of the loch

with his purse of salt and iron bridle, keening

for the sound of water sluicing the beast’s mane,

the black hillsides of its flanks he had hoped to harness

to plough his lower field. Two days in the stocks,

his boots soaked through, the year whitening,

and Harry Forbes blocking the white bone sun,

screaming at the slumped sack weight of him –

wickedness to court the Devil in black waters.

Though God knows he was dead by the first day;

hands the colour of heather flowers,

the black hare at his feet licking the salt

that trailed from his pocket, and a crow waiting.

by Sarah Gibbons, from her winning pamphlet ‘I Go To The Devil’