Woman, what are you doing
with your mattress, that hauled
weightyou're putting your back into,
and you, with the cushion
extending the pattern of your self?
Consider the black angle
of the punt the two men are discussing,
faces to the interior, how it cuts
across the step, which is a line
drawing the eye downriver.
Each figure is at work, even the watcher
on the bridge willing them to come,
come home, and the child, half lost
in foliage. Even the sky
would speak, troubled by tree-tops
and blown cloud. Three bound swans –
two waiting, one aloft
across the gap from boat to quay –
what are these – Angels? Bodies of light
held at the still centre.