Woman, what are you doing

with your mattress, that hauled

weightyou're putting your back into,

and you, with the cushion

extending the pattern of your self?

Consider the black angle

of the punt the two men are discussing,

faces to the interior, how it cuts

across the step, which is a line

drawing the eye downriver.

Each figure is at work, even the watcher

on the bridge willing them to come,

come home, and the child, half lost

in foliage. Even the sky

would speak, troubled by tree-tops

and blown cloud. Three bound swans –

two waiting, one aloft

across the gap from boat to quay –

what are these – Angels? Bodies of light

held at the still centre.