William Bedford
Rivers
That night,
surrounded by skies as tall
as the cracked rocks,
we lay by the thundering river,
making love to the ritual moon.
At dawn,
you were frozen as the river.
And death, like a sudden frost,
creased your bare flesh
to a splinter of unending silence.
Now concrete
has blocked the river.
The water curls south
in a broken fury.
The flowers have died.
And at night,
in your silence,
you raid the deserted earth,
your flesh
a remembered distraction.
poetrymagazines' note: Copyright © William Bedford 1968. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN
Page(s) 264
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