River

Grumbling Mrs. Mumble
itching along the bridge.
Spitting spite at Canary Wharf.
Lit up like an opened fridge.

Chains jangle in a falsetto wind,
seagulls preach a suicide laugh.
Mrs. Mumble fumbles in pockets deep -
a dead son's photograph.

Blinking west across a sepia St Paul's -
the unbuckling of a nurse's shoe.
Mrs. Mumble stumbles into her final swim.
The forgiving and never blue.

Mrs. Mumble's boy was a sailor
who never sent a card.
His shore leave burns on a garden bonfire.
Home now and ebony charred.