At Putney

Pink scud clouds over the bridges,
        Vauxhall, Lambeth, Battersea,

spider-work. Black. The syllables
        of water, black. Go. Stay. Met

in air, met in water, and I a child
        of summer born far from here

on a Thursday. A Thursday, you say?
        Far to go and full of woe.

And what year was it, the house
        a page torn from the calendar,

a foolscap boat filled with paper
        ballast, bisecting the waves

until they parted, impossible to let
        a single page go, and the thud

when the tide hit the bank? A year
        to remember. Give me your hand

across the water. Once I went down
        when the tide was out and the stones

ashimmer, obsidian in the moonlight,
        the ivy brackish and the toads

dry in their den. Come out
        from the fountain, maenad

made of green stone, moss-flecked
        bone and your teeth chattering.