where does she stop
greenland?
Or winter at Reykjahlið?
I know an African who fell in love with Greenland
it was a sort of interim love …
my head pressed beneath her locker room door
Travelling long-distance.
For a season, the cross-fjord ferry pumped out Fela Kuti
in the name of global village,
we become zen circle, complete and interlinked.
Where can she stop, if the circle remains unbroken -
Day after day in endless circularity …
and then
the butcher bird, with its melodious song, heralds a short pause
here, before she begins
to feed on lizards and other meat
in a crunch of breaking leaves
satisfied and replete
the Jul buk sated, disguises to hide the rogues
bookmarked spines torn astray
does she stay, does she go?
hither – to and fro?
She fades into the sand and fern-fall path
soft leaf-slip, sharp-edged flint-fall to the downward slide
dressed in her vinaigrette shirt and honeyed shorts
with a vihuela strumming gently from the playa,
        the vin du pays cooling to love temperature, he knew