Change

Change

A few feathers on the river path

By the copse betray the corpse

Nothing more sinister than unseasonal cold weather

The egrets and like have returned to the river

The same week as the storm from Russia

The big drifts take their time

Stay unthawed on the far banks for days

Discoloured by the top soil that is blowing off the fields

The white birds fly, awkward away upriver

Always away

And I move, a violence all my own shape

Back through the town

Alone and shamed

A man on his worn-out empty way