Tonight's Poet Corner: Merciful Highlander
Merciful Highlander by Belinda Roddie When the spoon hits the back of the palate just right, it tingles something extraordinary, and the lamb lingers on the spice spectrum just perfectly. The Scotsman tries a new song out on a younger lady who spins glass behind the barber shop, her hands hot and sticky from the outpouring of color in steaming streams. He wants to impress her and take her to Edinburgh, where the rain accompanies a chorus against the high grass and dark trees, and the stout is poured thick and frothy from the tap down the old boy's throat. And every time a stranger walks in from Inverness, there's a little skip beneath his right shoe, and the pillar displaying the preconceived end of the world leads to a pub where the stew is offered as hot as the Guinness is provided cold. And the Scot eats the stew, and it lingers perfectly.