
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

