Kay
The river is playing at land again.
She used to say that, standing on
the floodbank by the sudden lake,
her feet gloved by the water.
She was always remembering things.
How our mother wore her headscarf
like a bandage, drew her bike around her like an arm;
watched out for us from a distance, her gaze
skimming the rising flood like a swallow.
How she wandered off, as swallows do, in winter.
My sister looked for her in the water, found
the silver spokes of a bicycle in the lucid
shallows, lay down for hours on end
until she was sure.
Then the land came back.
As the water backed away, my sister took her shoes
in one tight hand and walked the puddled paths
where we had played as children, head down, looking
for fresh tyre-tracks, not remembering.
I don’t know who it was called down the rain.
The river is playing at land again
and I am standing on the floodbank
above the sudden lake,
not forgetting.