Robert Verdon, #190, Voyage

In expectation she stood

numb as driftwood,

in a swirl of tannic breeze

on a middling beach by a desert,

horizon swirling out like a skirt;

spokeshaved days falling away,

glissando summers gone, stars

winking in new ginger beer, new

friends with carefree caressing hands,

vanished;

this star, this sun, a hot iron fallen over,

the untarnished sand lambswool,

yet her bare feet sting;

and she can touch with her mind only

the guttering shadow of a

remembered myrtle,

and as the night falls,

begin to sing.