An angler wades in teetering like a goose slips on loose silt churned by the Don. Water rushes past and round him hip high November cold. The crack willow’s ready to tip. Browning catkins loom on the water. White geese play in its shallow roots far from the furnace the fire and soot. Only the splash of red-brick rubble a broken bumper stuck in the rushes lets slip the road, the way this river burst its banks after rain, reached up to these stone walls and snowgates and had a good look at the streets laced grey with industry sloped home with sewage and steel dust in its stomach. He baits his hook and casts to the current waits for barbel to bite in the echo of the gas bell the ore-brown walls of Tommy Wards the tinny crash of the weir.
*
Taken from the anthology The Footing, published by Longbarrow Press.