Two Bridges

On the last day of summer
I stood with my back to the traffic,
my chest pressed against
the green flaked railings
of Kelvin Bridge, and
leaning forward to watch the water,
remembered hot summers past
when I threw sticks with my brother;
dropped from high into the water,
and running to the other side of the bridge,
we would hang over the edge, necks
craned to see whose stick appeared first.

Now, turning from
the slam of car doors,
the cry of the man
selling flowers
and the erratic heartbeat
of heels on tarmac,
the river swells
above the sound of the traffic
and knows not
the rumbling streets,
the furls of moss
on dampened walls, or
the smell of piss rising
from the underpass,
where two men crouch
and spit in the dark,
their heads balaclava
black, from the shadows
flung from the arch, above.

The river, of course, knows nothing of this
but plunges on towards the sea,
powering through the parched throat
of the city, with a strength
and exuberance unknown to me, and
at its banks, the casts of broken
lives bathe, lapping at the
warm verges, and an ironing board,
breaking free, edges out
towards the centre,
making its bid for the open sea.
Shed from some kitchen,
it swims serene, pink like the fin
of a tropical fish.