Merchants of Cyrene
close your palms
on the last remaining place
a sprig of Silphium grows -
the silvery cold of a coinface.
The boats have all vanished from the slimy harbourwalls;
Apollonia emptied to reveal all.
How we are lost
bowed to the hearthlight
telling our girls why we'll have to be leaving.
Fat teardrops roll
off the bluffs of our cheekbones,
orangey globes
spent with a hiss on the dying coals.
No more sap of laserwort to grate
over braised flamingo hearts
or render into a salve
to purge the uterus lining.
Nothing left to sprinkle on the boiled
brains of sheep
other than this cheap asafoetidia.
How we are lost
loading the oxcart
with a halfmoon
filled of our meagre possession,
tying it fast
with twine from my uncle's shop
and now I must wake the girls;
Darlings, quick to the courtyard.
How we are lost
scrolling the highway
leaving behind the only home we have ever known,
lamp on a pole,
eyes glued to the bouldered
road, in my mouth
a moth goes and instantly perishes.
Halting the cart
I stop to listen:
cows in the dark,
bells at the edge of the ocean
mingle with snores -
a child sleeping in my earhole.
I feel alive.
How we are lost in each other.
Merchants of Cyrene
that you hold -
let them go.