Still and bitter night, our first week in this town
we hurry home along the towpath, huddled close
for warmth. Lamp-glow through the frosted branches,
cokey smoke of houseboats mingling with the vapour
on our breath, shawls of fog that hover on the oil-black water.
It’s then we see it, glowing through the mist: a spectral sculpture
propped against a tree. Wreathed in hoary moss and riverweed,
snapped twigs now icicles amid its spokes, sheathed
utterly in ice. And as we pass we can’t stop looking back,
as if, unprompted, we recognise our tangled pasts
have gathered there, have ossified behind us as we scurry on,
our first week in this town, laughing through the cold.
André Mangeot is a poet, short-story writer and novelist. His third poetry collection, “Blood Rain”, will be published by Seren early next year.
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This article appears in the 09 Jan 2019 issue of the New Statesman, The Brexit Showdown