however solitary show that he is now lonely.

 also bread and water are very bland suggesting that his life is boring

He was seven and I was six, my Brendon Gallacher.
He was Irish and I was Scottish, my Brendon Gallacher.
His father was in prison; he was a cat burglar.
My father was a communist party full-time worker.
He had six brothers and I had one, my Brendon Gallacher.

He would hold my hand and take me by the river
Where we’d talk all about his family being poor.
He’d get his mum out of Glasgow when he got older.
A wee holiday someplace nice.  Some place far.
I’d tell my mum about Brendon Gallacher.

How his mum drank and his daddy was a cat burglar.
And she’d say, ‘why not have him round for dinner?’
No, no, I’d say he’s got big holes in his trousers.
I like meeting him by the burn in the open air.
Then one day after we’d been friends for two years,

One day when it was pouring and I was indoors,
My mum says to me, ‘I was talking to Mrs Moir
Who lives next door to your Brendon Gallacher
Didn’t you say his address was 24 Novar?
She says here are No Gallachers at 24 Novar

There never have been any Gallachers next door.’
And he died then, my Brendon Gallacher,
Flat out on my bedroom floor, his spiky hair,
His impish grin, his funny flapping ear.
Oh Brendon.  Oh my Brendon Gallacher

the word kennel is associated with dogs, this suggests that the hunchback is worthless as he doesn't deserve to be treated like a person.

three times out of ten you’ll see the town clown,

like a basket of washing that got up

and walked, towing a dog on a rope. But

don’t laugh: every pixel of that man’s skin

is shot through with indelible ink;

as he steps out at the traffic lights,

think what he’ll look like in thirty years’ time -

the deflated face and shrunken scalp

still daubed with the sad tattoos of high punk.

You kids in the back seat who wince and scream

when he slathers his daft mush on the windscreen,

remember the clown punk with his dyed brain,

then picture windscreen wipers, and let it rain.

doubt, a jealousy grew in my mind, which turned the hairs on my head to filthy snakes,
as though my thoughts hissed and spat on my scalp.
My bride’s breath soured, stank in the grey bags of my lungs. I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued, yellow fanged.
There are bullet tears in my eyes. Are you terrified?
Be terrified. It’s you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own;
but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray
from home. So better by far for me if you were stone.
I glanced at a buzzing bee, a dull grey pebble fell to the ground. I glanced at a singing bird,
a handful of dusty gravel spattered down.
I looked at a ginger cat, a housebrick shattered a bowl of milk.
I looked at a snuffling pig, a boulder rolled

in a heap of shit.

stared in the mirror. Love gone bad
showed me a Gorgon. I stared at a dragon. Fire spewed
from the mouth of a mountain.
And here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue and your girls, your girls. Wasn’t I beautiful?
Wasn’t I fragrant and young?
Look at me now.

look good but is now a monster

Oxymoron, bullets are violent and tearsare a sign of weakness and non violence

I would like to have known

My husband’s wife, my mother’s only daughter.

A bright girl she was.

Enmeshed in comforting

Fat, I wonder at her delicate angles.

Her autocratic knee

Like a Degas dancer’s

Adjusts to the observer with airy poise,

That now lugs me upstairs

Hardly. Her face, broken

By nothing sharper than smiles, holds in its smiles

What I have forgotten.

She knows my father’s dead,

And grieves for it, and smiles. She has digested

Mourning. Her smile shows it.

I, who need reminding

Every morning, shall never get over what

I do not remember.

Consistency matters.

I should like to keep faith with her lack of faith,

But forget her reasons.

Proud of this younger self,

I assert her achievements, her A Levels,

Her job with a future.

Poor clever girl! I know,

For all my damaged brain, something she doesn’t:

I am her future.

A bright girl she was.

• Seems medical, factual – the use of brackets and a colon seem unusual.
• Written in third person – suggests that it may be a narrative.
• Head Injury – implies some type of pain – could be physical or mental.

when their horses snorted, when restless

hooves traced circles in the earth

and shimmering muscles refused the plough.

My secret was a spongy tissue, pulled bloody

from the mouth of a just-born foal,

scented with rosemary, cinnamon,

a charm to draw the tender giants

to my hands.

30 Still I miss them. Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk.

The searing breath, glistening veins,

steady tread and the pride,

most of all the pride.

They shouted for me

when their horses reared at the burning straw

and eyes revolved in stately heads.

I would pull a frog’s wishbone,

tainted by meat, from a pouch,

a new fear to fight the fear of fire,

so I could lead the horses,

like helpless children, to safety.

I swore I would protect

this legacy of whispers

but the tractor came over the fields

like a warning. I was the life-blood

no longer. From pulpits

I was scorned as demon and witch.

Pitchforks drove me from villages and farms.

My gifts were the tools of revenge.

A foul hex above a stable door

so a trusted stallion could be ridden

no more. Then I joined the stampede,

with others of my kind,

to countries far from our trade.

"scented with rosemary; cinnamon" - smell

"draw the tender giants to my hands" - touch

"shimmering muscles refused" - sight

"my secret was a spongy tissue, pulled bloody" - taste

this might be used to show to the reader the horse whispering is his/her whole life as everything that he does is to do with the horses. This is carried on throughout the whole text.

there is a turning point.

"I was scorned as demon and witch"

"A foul hex above the stable door"

"the glistening veins"

"stately heads"

"the searing breath"