VICKY Feaver looks ruefully at the subject of memory in this second sample from the new anthology Whatever the Sea: Scottish poems for growing older, edited by Lizzie MacGregor with foreword by Sally Magnusson (Scottish Poetry Library/Polygon, £9.99).

FORGETFULNESS

When my memory

was a film library

with a keen curator

who knew precisely

where to find clips

of every word

I wished unsaid,

or deed undone,

to play back to me

on sleepless nights,

I’d have welcomed her

muddling the reels.

But now the curator’s

retired, the ordered

shelves are in chaos.

I roam the racks

without a guide

searching for scenes

I’ve lost. Sometimes,

unable to remember

what I’m searching for,

I find Forgetfulness

kneeling on the floor –

an old woman, pale

and worried as a ghost,

rummaging in a tangle

of shiny black ribbons.