by Ian C. Webb
Artwork, “Improvisation” by Gina Yusim
Through the mist on the line
of a disused branch, half
of a mile, as the albatross
flies – towards the harbour’s
former glories. You
in your mangy house without
heat, tap your foot, to the
feet in a musty book, on
the carpetless floorboards
on which you sleep. As
for me, in a sweat on
an unmade bed, I cast off
from the shores of the seas
of the moon, climbing
the mast of the rapid eye,
transporting a cargo
of constellations: Chameleon,
Scorpius, Serpens,
Hydra – bright as the dust
of a stick of charred coal.
Climb into the nest
of a murder of crows; have
I charred each corner
of terra firma that one shade
brighter? “I’m not sure
you are who you say you
are,” you said on Victoria’s
Promenade. The sun
comes up like a salvaged
wreck, I gasp as if hanged
from the noose of a rope.
I’ll drag my feet to the edge
of the strand, hold
the sea to the ear of my
buried head, hear oil
on waves spark into a blaze.
I’ve always been a fan of this author’s work on this site