Across keel-worn waves, faring like falling | thrum of the prop and the turbid foam | beaten to a wake | a sign of unlasting | trails of traffic and marks of motion | recalls you to a passenger, asserts | voyages in the nearest | reaches of your blood | allows | no languid hours, face resting on shoulder or breast | no local sights, knocking against neighbours | no homely bays, even among the isles of your prone body | only the loneliness is familiar | clouds at the edges of the world ever melting | driven by a test never taken nor failed | but on this day as on each day | behind you the strongest | before you the strangest

Bullet-like, the exterior of the cocoon shines in unseasonally | warm March rain | Praise the timely, praise those nooked and notched, niched and moded | for whom style is unthinking, living is known | for these, every place is nature, and nature entirely home | A tremendous storm was coming | the pressure had been building for days | Sipping iced mineral waters through straws, at a pavement café | beside a busy street and congested junction | we saw an admiral in his limousine | at the lights | fanning himself with his cap | his uniform was a wedding, such | white and gold | his whiskers were splendid, indubitably nautical, you could scent the mermen on him | shared a barber with Poseidon | and his chauffeur so very handsome | I saw the way you looked at him, and was envious || When snow came instead of expected rain, I at once set off: even now | I don’t know why

Poem from distillate01, Apparent, 2020 | Available from Amazon