ENCLOSURES

We found secret gardens by the river —
Georgian enclosures. Old sofas, blown rushes,
on the bank. Always the barbed wire
hooks captured olive shadows, disgorged
another life: the pike had been spotted
in the shallow sluice that it inhabited.
From fighting we withdraw in tears,
our eyes becoming metaphors: a river
in sunshine, green with life: fragments
of protest, water over stone: the punishment
of history. Unsympathetic, your lovers
redeveloped you — old times of fatality,
mute acceptances: your shape evolved
from your work — cut into channels, stopped-up,
controlled. You diminish yourself with farewells:
these bits of your life that are drained —
that will never cut the sunshine open
with dragon flies and meadow-sweet:
you are nearer to being perfect now.

 

 

 

 

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