Last year’s floods surged salt
up the Yare and spilled through here.
I counted the starved, decaying pike
surfaced by so many losses.
Now I look for migrants
and while I scan you read to me –
abundance of mallard, greylag,
the pure-white belligerence of swans.
A tern holds before its drop;
that deadfall,
re-emergence and rough dividend
of too-small silver flailing.
You are reading now of the lapwing,
the curved crest, that joyful cry,
of all its resident names: green plover,
pewit, pie-wipe, lappinch, chewit;
such fresh-water in your migrant mouth.