A Poem by Ross Wilson

Skelf

Watching our three-year-old ascend
a rope ladder on a climbing frame
I started to run, afraid she’d fall
from the top rung, when her arms
pulled her up onto the platform
and the ladder swung

from her sole into me,
three decades before, grappling,
gripping trunk and branch,
and pulling myself up out of reach
of the big boys I’d provoked
into chasing me up a tree

I’d loaded with divots;
turf-bombs perched like birds
to bombard my pursuers before
I leaped tree-to-tree, and down
upon garage roofs, away from
big angry feet clacking after me.

Ticking hands grabbed me
in the moment our girl splashed
grey into my hair in a dash
of daring, a stubborn ladder tread,
agile as the young-lad self
buried in her Dad like a skelf.

Ross Wilson works full-time as an auxiliary nurse in Glasgow. His first collection, Line Drawing, was shortlisted for the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year in 2019.