You ask what’s in this place we chose
which keeps us here, to close our days.
I cannot answer that for last year’s blooms remain
to be deadheaded.
Their dry and brittle seedpods
clipped and swept aside, like so much futile beauty.
Rather, I would be a grebe. Lose my hobbled gait,
float on some still clear broad.
Stay low.
Dive to the bottom where even now light reaches.
While held breath holds, lobed toes propel
my dagger bill, emerging elsewhere faraway.
And long ago on disused track, its sleepers gone,
a skinny boy quickens to the cross-country tape.
Muddy pumps scrunch on old ballast
past the sewage farm.
Not yet overwhelmed
by heavier rain, cracked pipes, and more of us.
iii. 2026
