The North Is

The North Is

by Richard Carl Mather

Rain strikes terraces stacked in brown brick  

And wind blows through the underpass.  

Two fat-breasted pigeons  

Fly over York Minster; a single seagull  

Squats in Speke.  

I’m out there burying neolithic arrowheads  

On Karsey Moor & freshwater shrimping  

In the Irwell, or I’m cruising  

Upriver, crazy as a Lune & sauntering  

A Sunday  

Through Morecambe Bay, my bat-black cape  

Flapping all the way to Whitby Abbey.  

Of note is tonight’s  

Full frost moon suspended over Manchester —  

Little Manhattan.