Lethe’s so full of wounds that the river
lapses such as when sheets of ice descend
and when slow wreckage softens the slivers
or when the course is dragged bend to bend
what’s it like being turned into a scar ?
in your is I was - in your was I am
so that something on the level flood bars
the current and with gathering debris crams
the thwart cenotaph - the whorls remember
who’s forgotten when the cicatrice lies
and the downdraught has taken the trembler
in the water - then the wounded stream flies
in headlong roar recapitulated
yet beyond recall - decapitated
Oxford
8 March 2018