Siren Song In Spring
Flat scales of ice on shaded roads. Plaintive, the wind sings; catches in the slung wires, in the spokes of the old aeriel, a natural and an alien sound. Out of the blue, mist veils the river, blows across rooftops. Washing is clamped to lines: see it strain to fly, the arms of shirts waving like drunks at a wake: danse macabre. Spring pushes up in pointed buds: sallow, amethyst, velvet-white. On the stems of wild strawberries, petalled eyes open.