so i finally got it

The twist. It's the Moon playing at the Queen of Swords.

I was sat here not getting it for how many years and ran into it headfirst, in the last shape I would have expected, though it makes a sort sideways mirror sense if you watch the words dance from hand to hand across the years, and the river just got a whole lot deeper, but there's mercy at the bottom, drifting with the tide.