Two Poems

A Coin
for Edwin Morgan

John Acheson struck me. Master of the Mint,
he was engraver to the Medicis and the Scottish Queen
whose portrait he dug hard for in my golden flesh.
His hands twisted out the corkscrew curls,
scraped the swan-like neck for heads,
lion rampants for my tails. I’ve aged with her,
my high colour burnished, though still
I offer her an image of her profile on the brink
of greatness: Great Queen of France and Scots
and England, her crown both regal and the tiara
of her Roman faith. Tip me to certain angles
in the sunlight and you’ll catch reflections
of Chambord afternoons and at night a glimmer
of the candles ranked and raked on ballroom floors.
I announced a Golden Age and she has used me well
...