Bank Holiday Sunday on the Canal

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.