Merga Bien by Claire Askew

This week’s poem comes from Claire Askew’s second full-length poetry book, How to burn a woman. It’s a stunning collection, full of tenderness, love, righteous indignation and wit. As the back cover says, the collection “throngs with witches, outsiders and women who do not fit the ordinary moulds of the world.” How to burn a woman is shortlisted for the 2022 Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and is published by Bloodaxe Books.

Merga Bien d. 1603

Her pregnancy was considered an aggravating circumstance: she and her husband had no children although they had been married for 14 years. She was forced to confess that her current pregnancy was the result of intercourse with the Devil. – Wikipedia

Yes, I slept with him. I fell for his red mouth, the voice that came out of it. Girl, he called me that one word like a curl of pale smoke from the woodpile – the hot coal of his tongue against my throat. The town dried out that summer: smell of river bottom, parched rock, target practice of lightning on the plateau. I had no other children: the women flinched away from me in the dirt square like jackdaws, clattering gossip. Yet

I was pulled with wanting what he said he could give. I loved him,

I think. In spite of his disappearances, rough hands, various flaws.

I didn't believe he could possibly be who he said he was.

The Scottish Poetry Library on 5 Crichton’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8DT is open from 10am to 3pm weekdays, is open 24/7 online at Scottishpoetrylibrary.org. uk and also operates free postal borrowing, e-mail reception@spl.org.uk