nothing like the Thames -

broad sweep gasping

to chrome-shine future.

instead: fourteen

yesterdays taut

as an algae-slick chain skimming

the wake between two castles

the bridge of things, the meander:

chimney pots home for the ravens whose

grandfathers’ grandfathers clove cheek from skull on Micklegate Bar

your city his mother told him, eyes

out to sea

your city, but whose -

scouragers and men’s-banes, a handful of monks

selling the Host to witches through the back door

cabbage farmers, millers’ daughters,

stonemasons carving lace from rose-

hued fossils in the twilight

the callouses against the chisel more God’s than their own

and through all of this, the

yew tree

standing sentinel on the strand

listening to the strike of coins on Coppergate

the seethe of river

the whirling of the gulls, high

in the endless blue