Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
Finding the Way
She was used to walking with small boys
who feared, because she smoked, that she might die.
I said I saw their point. I think we laughed.
The stream was running deeper than we thought
in such a hot, dry summer. But the stones
projected high enough to let us trace
a silly zig-zag, hands clasped in surprise
that we were playing games. And standing on
a slab amid cascades I said, out loud:
No-one’s ever been just here before.
Beside the fallen mills for dying silks
we joked that rocks got permanently tinted
by water that might stain us too. In fact
I knew no shade could linger there but black
for widows’ weeds: and this perhaps was why
I took care to see my feet stayed dry
though she, it seemed, was willing to get wet.
Page(s) 41
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