Thames Valley Police, no. 43150331197
‘6.35 p.m. on 23rd November, 2015: the victim was struck on the face with a metal rod by men in an unidentified car, on Oriel Square, breaking his glasses. No assailant could be traced.’
Nothing much then, now nearly unseen –
a cut beneath the eye. A bruise, fading
to skin, frown and furrow, fine print. How
soon the body grieves, forgives how easily
it gives. Already these marks are marks
of other things. Sleepless lines that mar
an early frost. Fields turned for planting,
sandstone shorn against the river’s brink.
A fishhook’s incline, the doubling pitch
of flight like a whaler’s reckoning. In
the hollow of a bridge the water leaves
no scar, only trembling. A sound gone
as if from a whipped bowstring, between
where the arrow flies and, at each end,
thread spliced so as to pucker wood: the eyes.