The Sparrow (after Catullus)

Tom Pow is one of Scotland’s pre-eminent poets. His latest pamphlet At the Well of Love (Mariscat Press, £6) has a lot to say about love, mortality, cats and, as you can see below, sparrows. Pow has travelled extensively, in Europe, Russia, North and South America and Africa. On 29 June at 6pm, Pow will be reading alongside Christine De Luca and Anna Crowe at a free event held at the Scottish Poetry Library, marking the launch of a new collection of recordings of Scottish poets made by the Poetry Archive.

The sparrow settles on his lover’s lap, at the point it tapers into darkness. He catches his own sharp intake of breath at the way the bird nestles there, how it shivers its wings as if to signal sex. When she seeks to stroke its feathers, it nips a finger for her bother. Yet she smiles. Can this really be jealousy he feels? * How could such a dowdy cup of feathers come between them? Now its breast is cold, at least the bird’s a diversion no more. Yet still, they are not re-united. Worse! – it’s grief that now keeps them apart, her eyes swollen with crying. He swears she loved that bird more than her eyes. Oh curse the way love works, that he too should mourn a sparrow.