Narrowboats

I love the ones most obviously
lived in: bicycles and pots of lavender
arrayed on a roof, a stub–chimney
gusting coal smoke into the blue remainder
of a wintry day, a cat at the window
watching through curtains as the world
on shore flows past it, full of prams and slow
old men with hobbling dogs. Riding the cold,
insistent current below the weir, feeling it pull
downstream—imagine—even in your sleep;
even moored, even believing that it’s possible
to still yourself against something so deep
and used to its way, you’d have to live
as if nothing lasted. Something has to give.

—Sally Thomas