The Wreck on the A-222 in Ravensbourne Valley

T

There are more things to love
than we would dare to hope for.
—Richard of St. Victor 

where the car hit him, fireweed sprang with
blazons of fennel

and umbels
of dill fell
through the spokes of a wheel

on Whistun holiday to the sun, Denton
Welch spun a web in his crushed cycle,

sat in the seat, spine curled up like a spider—

and spied: “saw
the very drops of sweat glittering frostily
between the shoulder blades”

of a lad

…on and on he spied and bled from the blades of his cycle,
small as a spider,
hiding in the fireweed, getting
wet from the skins of many human suns aground
at the Kentish river near
Tunbridge Wells,

where the dill
lulls,

and all boys
spoil…
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