A Siren

(after Saba) Anyone watching you in the water would think: ‘A siren!’ Winner in the women’s swimming event, you seem strange on the screen of my inglorious life. While you smile in triumph I tie a thread, a thin unbreakable thing, to your toe but you stride past without noticing me. Your friends, young like yourself, crowd round and make a noise in the bar; and then just for a moment cloud-shadow, a grave motherly shadow shivers down from your eyebrows to the proud, beautiful chin and joins your rising to my own setting sun.