Revisionist Poetry – Creepy Island, v.3 – A Gothic Alternative

The river calcifies at dusk, slow as bone;
the island rises—coal against coal—its roots gone to rumour.
A willow’s fingers comb the surface; each stroke lifts a scrap of night.

Fishermen splice their stories into knots and hang them on the fence:
a shoe, a child’s tin cup, a tooth—keepsakes or talismans, no one says.
Lamp light from the far bank gropes toward it and withdraws, ashamed.

Winds carry a remnant of song—half-remembered and wrong—
that makes the skin of the river ripple like a second face.
On clear nights you can see small lamps bobbing beneath the soil:
eyes of something mid-sleep, dreaming of footsteps.

Leave the island its dark. If you must lean in,
press your palm to the rail—there’s the salt of other hands—
and a page flutters from some book that was never finished.