(martyrdom, murder,

misfortune yielding a surplus of ghosts

for an island one kilometre squared,

if ghosts were an idea still tolerated

by the non-tourism sector; though the non-

tourism sector tolerates what it must)

with the decency to not outlive its service.

Historical preservation averted on closure

once the photographs appeared,

but narrowly: the turbine, condenser,

control panel, fans, and electrostatic precipitators

of mid-century daring, in vintage colours,

fixtures and components exerting

an undeniable sentimental appeal to a heyday

incandescent and wasteful.

It happens to us all. Demolition halted its slide

into the figurative, and the land

newly earmarked for habitat, an eco-village

and cruise ship terminal

on what some are calling the Scottish Riviera.

A TRAWLERMAN

The sea is neither animal

nor god. Won’t be tamed or appeased.

Aidan gave his young priest oil

to calm the waves, but myth is most useful

when it rouses a body

to work harder. Body, spirit, fire, and water

having been absorbed into the world

of commerce in which even

seabirds participate. Their convergence

a sign of herring in the Haikes.

Profit unites great distances, yet its heart

beats inside us. But Evelyn,

whatever counts me truly among the living

resides with you. The rest just

perseverance and good gear.

Ran 30 minutes from Fife Ness,

all nets shot by 9, sky looks like wind.

Soon, heavy swell, the underwater cables

writhing. This foul coastline laced in wrecks.

We’ll take tea with the black squad

while we can, and your fine bread, Evelyn.

The ’38 winter herring overspilled

box and barrel, silvered the piers

at St. Monans, and the market so strong

fish girls’ fingernails dissolved

in brine. No one can predict how herring run.

They are a tender species, easily

influenced. It was luck brought them in

with money circulating freely

as the Germans prepared for war.

SHE IS BURIED ON THE WEST BRAES

In the air, wasn’t it, like rain, or ash.

A mineral agitation achieved the pitch of an anxiety

that makes things happen.

Once sat women. They sat here, then there.

They got on the odd nerve

and the minister, Cowper, a conflict-driven figure

calm brought out the worst in.

When the boy ran afoul of Beatrix Laing

it started up again.

Pretty Pittenweem, red roof tile

from the low countries. Grey, wind-scoured Pittenweem,

sky preserved in salt.

The church’s script rehearsed in the blood

of Patrick Morton, as in us all. In his fits, ague, respiratory distress

it found its actor and its audience.

Maybe his accusations were malicious, maybe not.

The mind casts its own spells.

You don’t need telling what we did to Janet Cornfoot.

You know the ingenuity of cruelty’s life cycle

as well as I do. Ergot, St. Anthony’s Fire

one theory to resolve what is no mystery. Not in America

and not here.

We weren’t poisoned,

we were the infected crop passing alkaloids

among ourselves, salivating

the honeydew inoculum and spitting

when we talked, incubating the deformity