white buddleia my reflection bloodshot

heatwave
a single magpie chatters
through dawn

slipping unnoticed
out of the house
last sunbeams

- Blithe Spirit

The Blindside

A crack willow leans out horizontally
into this hidden stretch of river
on the blindside of an unpeopled ait.

Where the sun gets through, there's
golden light at the bottom of riverside pools.
An obelisk pinpoints the old meridian.

And, each on its own orange buoy, two
young cormorants lie down like crocodiles
as their buoys are turned by the backwash.

a long way upstream the pungency of salt

trapped by stepping stones an old leather football

round the redeveloped dock a tern's plunge and rise