ROBIN ROBERTSON
Wedding The Locksmith's Daughter
The slow-grained slide to embed the blade
of the key is a sheathing,
a gliding on graphite, pushing inside
to find the ribs of the lock.
Sunk home, the true key slots into its matrix;
geared, tight-fitting, they turn
together, shooting the spring-lock,
throwing the bolt. Dactyls, iambics —
the clinch of words — the hidden couplings
in the cased machine. A chime of sound
on sound: the way the sung note snibs on meaning
and holds. The lines engage and marry now,
their bells are keeping time;
the church doors close and open underground.
Note: 'locksmith's daughter': 19th-century slang for a key.
From Slow Air (Picador, 2002).
Also available from Amazon.co.uk:
A Painted Field (Picador, 1997)
About Robin Roberston:
Robin Robertson is from the north-east coast of Scotland. His collection
'A Painted Field' won the 1997 Forward Prize for best first collection, the Aldeburgh
Poetry Fesitval Prize and the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year award.
His second volume, 'Slow Air', was published in the summer of 2002 and is a
Poetry Book Society Recommendation.