I try to focus

like the tutors said.

Jagged metal jutting

like a gravestone

out of the stagnant lake,

framed by a forked branch

grown from a forked trunk.

Hardly anyone stops

before stepping onto the bridge

rushing to the bigger picture.

 

I stand in the silence

of another time

on another bridge

seeing only water

where there shouldn’t be water.

Children chanting their alphabet,

iron clip-clopping on stone,

cattle groaning and farting.

door-step gossip rising

to the surface like bubbles.

 

My fellow students talk

about boundaries

which like this language

are not quite mine.

I do not remember Helen

walking behind me

caught in a fantasy where

the water recedes

revealing hill-top graves,

the chapel, houses, shops,

cattle-sheds, backyards.

The English reservoir drained

as the calendar rolls back

on Welsh families

lives drowned

for the wider view.