The following work by Alyson Kissner was written during her time on the Creative Writing Masters degree programme at the University of Edinburgh. This campus-based course is a one-year degree with dedicated strands in fiction and poetry. (There is also a Writing-for-Performance degree as well as an on-line Masters in Creative Writing for part-time students). Alyson Kissner is the recipient of the University of Edinburgh’s William Hunter Sharpe Memorial Scholarship Award. ‘To Loss’ and ‘Green Love’ are poems from her collection-in-progress, SUGAR HAYWOOD. She featured in the inaugural edition of our annual Creative Writing anthology, From Arthur’s Seat, which is published by Egg Box.
—
green,
many green,
all of them
perfectly green
for morning.
alone,
each one
lodged
in this politeness—
wasted—
to wait,
to lie down, and
close eyes all night
in a
corner of the room as if it were not.
lay down,
remember
not being able to sleep; the
night moving up and down
in the forest,
in a room.
let this worry
ache
like a
cat after breakfast.
dressed
of green
and tied around necks,
they came—
rich, these people, with noth-
ing to do, but always
permitted
entered looked
whispered:
look—
answered: see?
he will see
although he
does not wish to see.
he asked me
what you looked like:
silver shoes,
the mark upon your forehead.
A bell,
green.
‘That is the signal.’
alone,
she opened.