An angler wades in	teetering like a goose
slips on loose silt
				          churned by the Don.
Water rushes past and round him	    hip high
	      November cold.

The crack willow’s ready to tip.
Browning catkins loom on the water.
White geese play in its shallow roots

far from the furnace

		           the fire and soot.
					               Only the splash
of red-brick rubble       a broken bumper
				                  stuck in the rushes
lets slip the road, the way this river
burst its banks after rain, reached up

	        to these stone walls and snowgates
and had a good look at the streets

laced grey with industry          sloped home
 with sewage
	                   and steel dust in its stomach.

He baits his hook and casts to the current
	  waits for barbel to bite
in the echo of the gas bell

      the ore-brown walls of Tommy Wards
	     the tinny crash of the weir. 

*

Taken from the anthology The Footing, published by Longbarrow Press.