Bank Holiday Sunday on the Canal

Diana Hendry

Middle-aged argosies, each with a standard wife in the prow
and an old narrow-boat, rude with flashy red roses
and a load of tourists who've all gone daft
and are waving foolishly.

From the bank three dredger men drag a resisting dredger
 up-stream
on a rope.

Along the tow-path
families with prams and grans,
bramblers with bags and pans,
the amorous with sweating hands
parade before a deck-chaired audience.

A back-cloth of terraced cottages
looks obligingly picturesque:
cat, cockdoodle, an allotment
of cloched cabbages,
runner beans up sticks,
a window-sill of Mary-Mary shells.

Back stage, on the mud flats,
the naked hulks
of old abandoned colliers
are sunk in mire.

Sea-gulls, like reminders of swan-maidens, land
and are only sea-side tarts who hoik up their skirts
and on high toes pick their way across the mud
looking for worms.