ode to the thames

22nd September 2024

The river holds many things.

She holds boats on her back: races, visitors, homes,

She holds the moonlight

and she throws it back up at me like confetti .

She holds my hand when all I can do is watch her

She laps at bottles graced by long-gone mouths

She carries memories downstream of sticks thrown in by children,

Of toes dipped in

She whispers to us as we kiss on the pier

I take you to her, all of you, and you don’t even realise.

I am nothing if not a girl held by the rise and fall of her breast