(for Jean’s boys)
The stones are stopped, their grinding done.
The sluice gate is blocked, the big wheel still
and the hoist long gone
but its iron ghost
clanks through the mill, up the stairs
to where it turns and turns the small boys
in their beds cold as stone.
Spun on a spindle, sieved out of sleep,
they turn, scattering water and sunlight
back into dreams of the girls
in the Birkenhead Lido or the ice cream
cone on the pier in Rhyl
or the perfect courtyard on a picture postcard
sent from Urbino. Shaken out, they tumble
away from the millhouse
where the chains are still creaking,
through the tunnel, past the cottages
in the grain-dusted dawn, and leap
into opal water.
Jumping the salmon steps, on a hunt
for the master huntsman, they ride
on the backs of the salmon,
four boys flickering in fresh water,
and before you know it they are gone.