The hours are long before daybreak

Do the fish in their tank sleep at night,
their faces lulled by darkness,
the soft curl of water
closing all their fears?
It is difficult in a long night
of wakefulness and pain
to understand the magnificent stem of the appletree
blossoming steadily into light.
Even a little warmth lapping at my feet
puddles slowly upwards
to infiltrate numb hands, my throat gagging on memory.

There are no ways to say these things.
Where it hurts I can’t even show
since it lies outside my body
but passes endlessly through my genitals and wrists.
Someone is arriving now on the ledge of a neighbouring building:
three birds who have brought the seeds of appletree
to chip at and discuss,
glancing with an almost maternal mindfulness
towards the window where I sit.

Their blessing is a wafer I will take and break in half –
the small mouths of the fish beginning slowly to open.

Windows rattle on a cloudless night

There is a city called ‘Kite’. It dreams for itself a thin vanishing. Secretly by night it folds up its expanses, deserted streets, old arch­ways, shuttered buildings and becomes a pale hand open to the wind of the stars. Made of stone condensed into air, the temple it offers us is all transparency.

Lives that narrow from oceans to measured streets, from wide boule­vards to manageable rooms with small square windows and finally a voice in a room wheedling and apologising. Already the cicadas shake their rattle of heat and death. What is under the earth so longs to join the air.

The ship that sails out beyond the limits trails the last of the land bobbing at its shoulder. We shall not altogether go under.

Far over me, in the space of dreams, this city gliding resistance.