The Girl with Eyes like Dying Stars
We sit in Costa, she bristling with the blue hair of her new-found tribe, tiny woodcut dolphins dancing from her ears & LOVE inscribed in glittering gel pen on her arms. I force a smile, bemused at how I’ve ended up on trial, this teen my judge & jury. ‘My log stove’s such a simple pleasure in my life,’ I patiently explain. ‘I love to watch the flames at night, red & wild, to feel its heat seep deep into my bones, especially when a bitter rain is hammering down outside.’ She sucks her thick green smoothie through a straw. ‘The problem’s the particulates,’ she says, setting the i-phone she forever flick-flack-flicks face-up on the table top. ‘They’re damaging to children’s lungs.’ ‘You know I’ve always local-shopped,’ I sigh. ‘I never fly. Don’t have a car. I do my best to not kill polar bears & baby pangolins.’ A ghost smile flits across her face, faint as the planet’s final failing 40 Watt light bulb & I catch a glimpse of the carefree kid I knew, the one who slid away slow as a melting glacier into a rising sea of dark anxiety. Drooping like a drought-hit flower, she checks her i-phone screen — & my heart hurts to see this girl who should be blossoming & bright, blighted by this constant drip drip drip of doom. She glances up with eyes like dying stars, talks of murdered bees, of coral reefs bleached to white, of poisoned seas, whole habitats wiped out & how it’s all our fault. & oh, she’s right. Of course, she is. But how do I get the message through to a blue-haired girl I love that sometimes you have to turn the newsfeed off, block out the worry-rats & toxic-slugs that night & day gnaw holes of negativity in the soft flesh of your brain? How do I help her undertsand survival of the soul means closing out — at least for a while — the constant howl of others’ pain. That sometimes you have to stay at home, lock out the dark, light the ancient flame, sharp November rain lashing the windowpane, the fire burning, the fire burning animal & fierce, in your wild beating heart.
WNSF
Dear Reader,
there will be no cocaine chopped up with a platinum credit card / snorted through a rolled up 100 dollar bill / no ketamine downed with a swig of bourbon / no heroin will be popped in this poem / there will be no dingy hotel room with the door bolted & locked & a flickering 40 watt light bulb / no rohypnol will be slipped into a stranger’s drink / no one will grasp a woman’s throat and squeeze until her lips turn periwinkle blue / no one will lash another with a leather cat-o-nine-tails until they screech the [agreed-in-advance] safe word / no tangerine the colour of a small sunset / no rough-skinned jaffa / kumquat / prickly pear / no snooker / golf / ping-pong / squash ball luminous or otherwise / will be barrelled into any mouth/anus/vagina. there will be no dirty-rag gags / no ugly leather masks, no chains [choke or otherwise] / no dog leads or leather harnesses / no sharp studs / you will witness no howls of pain & despair / no wounds, no bleeding from any orifice. poems a-plenty are published in literary mags / where selections of all and any of the above / in various and variegated iterations can regularly be read.
this poem invites those whose hearts fibrillate at the lightest touch / it invites soft light / slide guitar, piano playing slow and low / pinot noir poured into delicate crystal / it invites intimacy / skin on skin / sudden gasps & squeals & grunts (oh yes, grunts & gasps) / & orgasms, merry & multiple / words are welcome, whispered / with the frisson of a silken breeze / murmured into hair, tangled & soft as darkness / this poem delights in shudders & shimmies & secret susurrations / it aches to lie down in a summer wood, honeysuckle-scented / in a meadow on a bed of lush green clover / on a beach below a sheltering cliff / sunlight fading to dusk / pinprick stars quickening in a deepening sky.
this poem invites duende.
this poem is private. its door is locked.
only lovers may come inside.
Magi Gibson was co-winner of the Wigtown International Poetry Prize 2024, Scotland’s biggest poetry prize, and shortlisted for The Poetry Society (UK) Free Verse Prize in 2025, as well as the McLellan Poetry Prize 2023. Her poetry sequence, The Senile Dimension, won the Scotland on Sunday/Women 2000 Writing Prize. Her work appears in Scottish Love Poems and Modern Scottish Women Poets (both Canongate). Her poetry has been published or accepted for publication in many anthologies and poetry/literary magazines including The Moth, Poetry Ireland Review, The Southbank Review and The Stinging Fly in Dublin. Her poems have also been broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 4. She has held three Scottish Arts Council Writing Fellowships and one Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellowship. She is currently co-creator with Ali Whitelock of The Magi and Ali Poetry Show currently featured on You Tube and Substack.