Remote Scottish Island

by Ingrid Leonard

Fealty to you catches at my skin like an un-
finished necklace. Always the barely-hidden
smirk, the necessary explanation before ears
bar their gates – no-one likes to be wrong.
Everyone else seems to come from somewhere
somehow more acceptable – Cumbernauld,
Basingstoke; no fodder for jokes about inbreeding
or sheep sex there. What’s more, folk misremember:
are you going back to Harris for the holidays?
What do you mean it’s not in the Outer Hebrides?
Like telling that one Frenchman that breakfast’s
not the main British meal, or a Brit that Eastern Europe’s
not all corruption, or cheap prostitutes, you’re a thing
folk think they know. What’s it like to grow up
in such a remote place? For the love of God,
don’t ask that question. Few names can claim to be
at the centre of something – Rome, Byzantium.
It’s not all bad; there are those who move here
for the love of it, to raise children in a quiet quarter,
forget the things they made in crowdier towns.
Others think that makes them the bigger animal,
but I’ll meet their gaze, Orkney – you’re too good
to be the blank letter in a fool’s repertoire.