Aquarius

Aquarius

So, the routes of the city,

all its paths,

arteries and overflows –

the scummy run-offs from sewers

and roads –

end or start on the muddy banks

of the sallow-tree river.

Water does what it knows:

It coils

and uncoils like a gut

over decades-old millstone grit,

between

the crumbling, rumbling jaws

of Anglo-Saxon stone;

Sneaks and snakes under

willow trees;

runs past hospitals,

factories, back-to-back slums,

picking up

brand new stories and the ghosts

of old songs.

It is evening and the sun

slips down

behind the towers,

her short rays dipped in blood.

There is violence:

Hooded eyes of black, sirens,

the cutting of a knife.

Under the sign of Aquarius

a darker sky

brings us cold rain.

The city squirms like a sick fish.

Rainy bodies

glide, shiver, trudge, like shades

at the river’s edge.