Susan Hawthorne #4 Adyar stitch, a river poem

the Adyar River is embroidered with floating water plants

debris of plastic and wood

unpicked by the rowers who oar their way through

stitches as loose as my pathetic knit

each stitch with a propensity to slip

disappear into the void

like a star grown too old

no stitch tight enough to make a noose

with slip knots in honour of death

the Adyar takes the dead into its slipped stitches

as when she threw herself from the pipe bridge

too thick to swim but thin enough to drown