Alice Oswald
SWAN
A rotted swan
is hurrying away from the plane-crash mess of her wings
one here
one there
getting panicky up out of her clothes and mid-splash
looking down again at what a horrible plastic
mould of herself split-second
climbing out of her own cockpit
and lifting away again and bending back for another look thinking
strange
strange
what are those two -white clips that connected my strength
to its floatings
and lifting away again and bending back for another look
at the clean china serving-dish of a breast bone
and how thickly the symmetrical quill-points
were threaded in backwards through the leather underdress
of the heart saying
strange
strange
it's not as if such fastenings could ever contain
the regular yearning wing-beat of my evenings
and that surely can't be my own black feet
lying poised in their slippers
what a waste of detail
what a heaviness inside each feather
and leaving her life and all its tools
with their rusty juices trickling back to the river
she is lifting away she is taking a last look thinking
quick
quick
say something to the
frozen cloud of the head
before it thaws
whose one dead eye
is a growing cone of twilight
in the middle of winter
it is snowing there
and the bride has just set out
to walk to her wedding
but how can she reach
the little black-lit church
it is so cold
the bells like iron angels
hung from one note
keep ringing and ringing
