Aquarius

By Richard Carl Mather

So the roots of

plants, trees, arteries, sewers, nervous systems, run

down to the shore of the river,

which uncoils like an intestine

past Adam and Eve’s.

Beyond muddy perimeters, the water turns,

churns up contraceptives, insects,

and mushy brown leaves.

The river charms

its way between the crumbling, rumbling jaws

of earth, past restaurants, dustbins, hospitals

like the persistent flow of time, words, people, hissing cars;

past the ruins of

factories, castles and back-to-back slums,

picking up layers of mud, newspaper pages, the ghosts of old songs.

Behind red raw roofs

the old sun

slips

in silence.

Beneath the reign of Aquarius the conurbation squirms

like a sick fish:

sirens, violence,

eyes behind windows, the emaciated beggar.

Bodies traffic through the rain: wind, glide, shiver, trudge

like shades at the river’s edge.