Avon Verge

Accidental stars etc.

Avon means river. And the ley runs straight to Trinity. Where we meander brushing each other like combs and knots both. And there wasn't a mother to chide us or a devil to ride us down the slopes. And the fallacy of an antique maxim is a mirage of the river. Down from us a woman drowned and the swans were hooked on lead and gone where the old Swan burned and the grass was soft and thick as groins.

She is already naked. From the waist down. And I worry for the barges. Pretty painted, the crop of them sluggish at the locks. Wait for the turning of one handle and, Eureka! The lowering of the river-fractal's balance. Wait. The turning of one key after the barge slopes in. The turning of another. The raising of the balance. The turning of the-the turning of the-ceaseless turning of her hand toward the crop of me.

There were a thousand avons slugging through the thick curls of England. There are, have been, a thousand of us coursing through each other. And further down this river, a mirage of a. This river straightened at its ledge. Canalled. So the barges might come. When barges came to deliver. And when will? When the barges came and England was. And the river's fractal beaten into shape. I alone have kept a ledger.

But where we were was heaven and a ragged edge. You, the woman-I-tied tight to a headstone. Drown. And a swansong hooked and lead. Were on a ruttish curve of avon. Where the long grass and the parsed reed. For the fashioning. And she is fresh still. Warm and curved, the cusp of her. Straight and cropped and weighed. The balance. And the swans so frequent here.

Eureka, I cried. Sending a curlew out. There, at the verge of Avon, thick hair curling on the flat bone, the swans so frequent we forget them, barges sloping through the straights, she unhooks her bra, and, one by one, undoes the buttons of her blouse.