for Sam Gardiner
Unblocking a drain behind the privy
last St Ethelburga’s day, the scullion
found a tiddy mun, small,
wizened, and bearded; taking it
for a Frenchman he caught the beast
a smart whack on the crown
before it loped off into the Ancholme,
pausing only to execrate
Cornelius Vermuyden, whoreson
Dutchman and drainer of fenlands.
Whims of an immemorial lutulence
these estuarine islands, soup bubbles
astir in the crook of the river’s arm
where a dredger gives the sandbanks
the brush-off: slow-motion hide-
and-seekers of the floating centuries!
But – vengeance for the bog spirit –
Read’s Island is sinking, reclaimed
tide by tide where a skeleton brickworks
returns to the clay and its deer herd’s
hoof-taps carry over the water.
Premature creatures of myth,
they stand among peewits and avocets
by the channel and drink; touched
they will take to the water and swim.
Arriving too late to follow I make
my way to the water’s edge and find
the currents, the sunlit shallows,
impenetrable in their wake.