The Bridge

Goatlike boys dallied beyond the brickwork

kiting drawing and wringing witty words.

Arias aired alongside an untuned piano, 

the telephone booth shone,

and tennis grunted from behind, imitating a drier. 

The idle bartender blasted music.

It sounded valent and naked,

mixed with the medley of faux shoes. 

Everyone stared at the chalkboard

advertising a Milhaud concert 

from three years ago. 

Rowers sure sounded like mincing fruit salad

but the faces in distant cars remained unintelligible. 

The bridge is still a wet sole with

sleeping noses and plastered in odoured, misty orange,

a lens letting names sing.

Fattened mosses bolden proudly, like the moles of the moon,

meditative, judging the men and women passing.

Trivial passages below host birds’ recitations.

The security guard of the adjacent College

is biking with brisk Britten.

The river dozes on the purple air. 

The more the Cathedral bell harmonics ring, 

The more I wish to hear a friend’s harping.

The sun out-rises my trace-climbing of 

stairs. I set a hip to the breathing

stones, laze and think about some nothings.

The singing mingles, skirts and synchronisations, 

Outdated noises, with names distantly recorded in 

Grandpa’s diaries from teenagerhood. 

From beyond the sunset a whistle sounds and dims.