The Water Table

Sluice Angel

Low tide at the sea lock,
a forty foot drop to muddy shallows…
One boat’s width
of channel that the dredger grubs up
daily… Silt to one side scored in circles
where they dragged for don’t ask what…
The tall shut doors of the hall
of the world at which the weight of water,
of incipience, does not need to knock:
feel it there like a shudder
of difference, the engine of change.
Now, almost soundless, hinges shift.
With a gradual calibrated rip
like a concord of lathes, with a crypt smell,
two green-grey-brown stiffening blades
of water fold in. They curve, feathering
themselves in free fall: wings
flexed, shuddering, not to soar
but to pour themselves down, to earth
the charge, liquid solid as rock
and untouchable, trouncing itself
to a froth, to exhaustion, till with a sigh
the gates can open, and the world,
our world, small craft, come through.