Zero hour. The streets cooling in aftermath,
papers offered news new-risen each morning
in the communion wafer of overnight knowledge.


Agents unlocked their shops to fresh loaves
cheaper than newsprint and without headlines.
The river lay overgrown like a black mirror. The Mirror.


The Sun. Along the common, dark-stippled with dew,
no swans broke the burnished, unconscious waters.
Their diligent ancestors breasted the sluggish stream


proudly, as befitted feathered property of a queen.
Local constables have been dragging the river—
gaffhooked bikes lay on the bank, twisted like corpses.


A weedy Cerberus squatted, fax machine hauled
blind from the depths. Everywhere riverboats
have moored illicitly—patched, doleful city afloat,


each roof hauling a woodpile like a preposterous hat.
And then, as the old gasworks rose into sight,
a kingfisher darted upriver, metallic blue.


O Daily Telegraph, O Daily Mail, O The Times.
Give us a sign. We would have a wonder and a sign.

A crossbow bolt soon lost to the willows.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 18 Number 5, on page 36
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2000/1/the-river