What the River Keeps

The river keeps a shoe, a shopping trolley,
the long green hair of weed it combs
all summer and never finishes.

It keeps the sound the bridge makes
when a lorry crosses, and gives it back
an hour later, softer, further down.

My grandmother said the river kept accounts.
I thought she meant money. She meant
the names of everyone who learned to swim there
and everyone who didn't.

In August the water drops and shows us
what it borrowed: a bicycle wheel,
a ring of stones someone arranged for a fire,
the pale line on the bank where it used to be.

We stand on the dry stones and read it
the way you read a letter
that is not addressed to you
but was left open on the table.