Midnight.
Sky hung like ink in a jar of water.
Moon smooth as a glacier mint on its way to dissolution.

Walking the towpath
cheeks pale
I am dissolving

but not in the way I seek;
not as the mind’s fingers reach out
and fuse with the fingers of sleep

to cradle eight hours of dreams; more
as the line between solid and liquid
might be rubbed out,

as path tree grass bench bin everything
blurs. Amid the vagaries
of unsleep

the spirit of the old city is rising like damp,
feeling its blind way back to the fens,
groping at my face and lungs. Here

river has taken to air,
let go of silt,
shrugged off houseboats and swans

to hover over its essence:
to kiss me. When
all I want

is everything to slot into
its proper place:
flat sky, round moon, straight path, dark river.

To lie down still as a woman between new sheets:
eyes closing effortlessly, mind empty
as a jar of water.

Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk, England in 1983 and now lives in Cambridge, where she works in a library and as a freelance editor. In 2015 a selection of her work was included in the Carcanet anthology New Poetries VI. Her debut collection, The Met Office Advises Caution, is due out from Carcanet in September 2016 and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.