Lacking the romance of source or sea, this river middle, sectioned out in beats, is nonetheless a beaded string of stories, a rosary and elegy.
Teens of the 1980s swam in jeans—
our riviera was the weir above Ballyclough.
We clambered over weedy green rocks or dived from trees,
dried off—not like otters but ungainly labradors—
sloped away to smoke and throw sticks in to the millstream.
Each day at four the river water ran from brown to red.
The salmon steps were our jacuzzi, where Jacky Mull
was held under by the current, re-emerging blue
and slower. His life moved one beat down to the factory:
Ballyclough Meats—leaning over concrete walls we watched
him lugging piles of horse-guts and sluicing down the floors:
each day at four the river water ran from brown to red.
In reedy pools beyond the stone bridge lampreys shimmered.
We dislodged them
with rod butts till they coiled round our wellies, foul-hooked them,
and piled them into baskets in writhing grey bundles.
We tumbled them on the lawns at home. In our houses
we sloughed off our damp silty clothing. Forgetful
of our monstrous quarry, dying slowly on the grass.
Each day at four the river water ran from brown to red.