Carole Bromley
Suddenly, as the Result of an Accident
You came down to the riverbank the next day,
at Briggflatts, one mile downstream
from the rope bridge. You picked flowers.
The flood had receded, leaving silt on the reeds.
You knelt at the river’s edge and closed your eyes,
wanting to feel the cold water wash
into your mouth and nose, wash
into your lungs. You felt the other boy’s hand
on your shoulder and then the darkness,
the letting go, the last blur of harebells.
You imagined him coming to rest here,
caught in these reeds.
You gathered a clump of them,
heavy and wet in your arms, rocking, rocking.
It is fifty years later and I hold them.
The reeds are brittle now. One breaks in two.
I thought it was a moth caught in the flap
of the little cream envelope
and then I saw it was a papery petal
from a pressed flower. Inside,
dried meadowsweet, the seeds
ready to burst, a field-vetch still purple
and a single harebells so fragile
I am afraid to handle it in case
its blue flowers should crumble.
I turn over the envelope and see,
written in your familiar hand
'Picked by the river Rawthey, June 1955'.
Page(s) 39
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