The Bunks
Someone dropped
A bedframe
Off the bridge
Into the river.
A bed on a bed.
How redundant.
The locals called it
The Bunks.
Sometimes they’d stop
On the bridge
Just to watch it
Being made
And unmade
Under sheets
Of green water,
Now smooth,
Now tousled,
And the trout
Torqueing through
The iron bars
Of the headboard.
Of course the bed
Had been dropped
So as to face
Downriver, the better
For dreaming.
When the water
Was high
You could hardly
Make it out
But when
The water was low
The bed rose up
Over the surface.
And it was then,
In the dry years,
That men bragged
Of having made
Love on it
Nights when
They were younger,
The current flowing
Underneath them,
To which
Their wives said –
Are you sure
It was a girl
You were sleeping
With and not
The river?