Kennet Mouth

Tonight a pair of swans, heads tucked back,
Pillowed on white, float a long eddying swell
Of oblivion, black as a river of Hell.

Here, where the Kennet meets the Thames,
A river of forgetting meets a river
Of regret, Lethe meets Acheron,

An announcement I can’t quite follow
Carries downstream from Reading Station
– Is this the train you’re leaving on?

*

Slowly it approaches, old rolling stock,
The last train all but empty of souls,
Sparking the sky above Brunel’s bridge

Beneath which, one Halloween, the Pandemonium
Marching Band (sax, tuba, accordion, drum)
Struck up a spirited dirge, struck up

A spectral replica on the other side,
Echoing to Kingdom Come in the damp arch
As torches threw shadows on the far wall.

I followed, wheeling the accordionist’s bike
– The cycle path strewn with broken glass –
Past Blake’s Lock and The Jolly Anglers,

The gas monitor’s persistent hiss,
The lifebelt holder with its stump of rope,
The scrap of grass where we turned and kissed,

Things still in place, the things we list
To stem the haemorrhage of memories,
Words that were spoken, light on a face.

*

Issuing from the throat of the bridge,
The Kennet, brimming with volume, mouths
The same slow vow, letting go,

As it did before – the same I do –
Giving itself up to a greater flow
Whilst I, knowing myself undone,

Knowing it’s time to go, hold back
On the brink of a cold consummation,
The clank of the train dwindling to London.