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Yeast

By Roddy Lumsden Roddy Lumsden

A word you can’t quite say

without itching, flinching; it’s not easy

to ignore its squirming appetite, stay

your primal juddering. And yes, at

night, each microbe gurns in the salty sea

of gut and gullet, born again, boldly eats

as you ate it, brews its own queasy tea

of proto-raunch which it will quickly sate,

birthing wanderlusting vigors, as yet

unknown to microscience. They sashay, set

out for the toes or gape through your eyes at

your drooping lids, your fat bunch of keys, at

this internal motel’s boss, bellhop, lackey, sat

in the throne of his slumber, a mercy seat.

Source: Poetry (April 2011).

Biography

Roddy Lumsden was born in St. Andrews, Scotland; he describes his upbringing as small-town and working-class. His earliest exposure to literature came from his mother and older brother, who would read aloud to him when he was a child. Later, when he attended school, his writing was influenced by the works of W.S. Graham, Philip Larkin, Thom Gunn, T.S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath, and by song lyrics.

His work is marked by an . . .

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