Cambridge, off-season. The old city mortared to new age,
Victorian terrace houses razed and rebuilt for business—
young men in flash suits own the footpaths.

Each railway viaduct to London frizzes with buddleia
the “butterfly” bush, cocked refugee of empire,
amethyst spray as its roots drive home the cracks.

We were locked to the faith of another England,
shadowy walks up the weed-choked Cam,
a few lonely, out-of-work swans paddling to the bank

to hiss, or croak, or croak-hiss. Silence
drained the tributaries. The sculls, the boathouses,
stammered in reflection, not themselves or quite

themselves, the water views Canaletto made fetish of,
searing Venice in the seductive texture of oil,
then grinding scenes out, one after another,

until each cast its palsied shadow on the last.
We wandered spaded banks, mere ghosts of our young selves, < ...

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