In the still evening

Running rest-day ...

... here's a poem by Susan Wicks, from her (pictured) 1996 collection. I just adore the imagery in this verse:


MUTE SWANS

In the still evening two swans,
twin ghosts across black water,
glide closer and the two beaks
merge, the stretched pale necks fuse
to a perfect heart, squeezed ever tighter
until the dark centre
fills, the last gleaming feather
dies in the curve of the bodies'
slow shrinkage to a half-remembered
mouth, a hat, a white bow floating
on deep water.

But no, they have
passed each other, they separate,
they have vacated the night’s mirror,
that last light from the sky,
the symmetry
that made disappearance necessary.