Wild Court

An international poetry journal based in the English Department of King’s College London

‘The Smallest Distillery in Scotland’ – a poem by Ben Verinder

 
 

    The Smallest Distillery in Scotland

 

Donaghy found me behind the whisky
stills and suffered my story: faith, boiled down
to a mash of schoolboy memory -
the creaking pew, shot of hymn, blood trickles down
the gaunt white lolling face, that feeling someone
famous just left the room. Highland monks,
he said, distilled the wort they christened
uisge beatha to treat colic and the mumps.
If the spirit failed, they would ‘commend you
to the light, where all reliable accounts conclude’.
His words, repeated, flush my throat. There
was an ending - a refined measure of proof
conjured by an angel’s share just before
he evaporated through the mould-black roof.

 


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