ODE
ODE


Poems: Loss

River of Gold

 

There’s a railway up on that embankment.
Joan Menzies went that way towards her lover
years and years ago…
You look over and you see the sun,
down on the river…
She was from San Francisco…
You look over that ledge far enough
you see the river…
His name was Frank—Fast Frank they called him;
he’d made money out of gambling up at Yale,
moved on to William’s Creek where she was going…
Oh Frank,
I’m coming to you, coming home to you,
just as you wrote me to…
Just look at that old sun down on that river…
the yellow river, gold in that river…
looking over that embankment there…
She had yellow hair.