Jackie Kay’s poetry corner: ‘Making do is something you can do just fine if there is love in the room’

Liz Lochhead’s A Night In is a lovely, tender love poem that will resonate with many people I imagine during this lockdown that are having to reach into the depths of their cupboards, or make do with some “rat-trap cheddar” and supermarket plonk.

It gets to the heart of the matter in twelve short lines: what matters most is love.

Making do is something you can do just fine if there is love in the room, “knowing you’ll be soon”.

And the perfect moon comes in at the end of the poem like the perfect companion, like a big white dinner plate.

Many of us, whether alone or in company, are coping with the many nights in by having a routine, and by having a glass or two (or three) of supermarket plonk!

A Night In, by Liz Lochhead

Darling, tonight I want to celebrate

not your birthday, no, nor mine.

It’s not the anniversary of when we met,

first went to bed or got married, and the wine

is supermarket plonk. I’m just about to grate

rat-trap cheddar on the veggie bake that’ll do us fine.

But it’s far from the feast that – knowing you’ll be soon,

and suddenly so glad to just be me and here,

now, in our bright kitchen – I wish I’d stopped and gone

and shopped for, planned and savoured earlier.

Come home! It’s been a long day. Now the perfect moon

through our high windows rises round and clear.