We were all at the river before it was strange
and toddled to whoops all ribbed middays long
with sisters and kick-sprays, and the light came in tins
but, spilling or strapped up, love was there to soothe change.

Inside water all stayed, shaking; top stuff moved away.
The foggy telescoping cat who dreamed up from deep
was Yabbie, of crack forepaws, fond of waterlogged sandwich.
Turtles, finger-necked, pointed out 'One regards one sky each.'

Fringed eels, made all of tail, bumped a dog sunk in sleep
and the questioning length fathers shouldered to deep holes
jobbed, and wriggled up again, fixed through a dumb-shouting
kicker, in crisp saliva, who'd be sweet on sundown's coals.

The river swelled through concrete in cyclone-wire summers
and inside the greened rope-tree's palace of jerked m's.
It built bridges, teemed, raged brown miles wide to music;
one side was gorge and hidden - the same side was Thames.
...