LHR

In the queue at terminal four

I know that tree is not a sculpture

I have such knowledge

such imbricated ways of seeing:

we stab at nature at its joints.

If the sun stopped stabbing us

so cosily, I would

rip your head off, like a bead.

DBX

arrive midnight
arrive midnight in the Gulf

humid touchdown o Christ
sweat, engulf

(flamingos. flamingos!
tucked into the last salt marsh)

tarmac to eight lanes
black asphalt,

hot BMWs, Porsches
Jags, Mercs

and mercs in black
polo shirts, Oakleys, tattoos

Dubai, 2009
stopover before I fly

into
the war zone.

Dubai Airport Midnight

NQY

NQY

The planes putt in, carving
bridges over Cornish air
and Cornish gorse.

Salt climbs to the wings
from the surf that cracks
at Bedruthan Steps -

the sea's spring rhythms
masking smoke from stag-dos
and the holiday lets.

SFO

Like a police booth

the airport’s interior

has expanded 

a hundredfold:

which dimension

grew quixotic?

Corridors veer off

Always turning to the right

leads nowhere even less

to the wrought-

iron bench at the heart

of the maze

A press conference

slated for Sheremetyevo

wobbles into view,

Ecuador shimmers on

black surfaces

of brewed java;

cafés go viral

Hermés handbags

Godiva chocolates

Housekeeping attends

to the bones of 

dead cows

litter and we—

fortunate this time—

return to Information,

ride the Sky Train

to Parking Lot A-slash-B

Light through the western windows

An airy shift:

bright surround

lifting, bodies

no longer split

from interior skies

I have become lighter

Light sure:

the land’s slow 
syllables

roll out of open
mouths

sung and spilt

We could step off the edge

of this shore
welcoming space

YVR

Someone else has landed, o my beloved country.
Someone else can smell your salt air, your wilderness
Someone else can see your flighty, red maple leafs
Someone else can taste your fresh, sacred, salmon
Someone else can hear your heteroglossic apologies
when someone else stands on your feet
Someone else has landed, o my beloved country,
will she kiss the tarmac for me, will she kiss
the bowl of mountains, the wide green Pacific,
will she kiss the very air o my beloved country,
will she tell them, soon I shall be there?

Searching for the High Seas

1
The train station
at St Davids floods
magazines and chocolates.
Crosswords lap
at my feet, a woman
cresting the wave
proposes to reunite me
with my ex, three things
to do written in sand,
and seven traps: do this
and he drowns
in another’s embrace.
Magazines float by:
New Scientist
Scientific American
Logic!
Where is The Economist,
life raft of the bereft?


2
No corridors open up
whistling sea breath.
A packet of Trident
Tropical Twist plucks me
from damp dissolution:
leaves me high and dry on
a train to Barcelona,
the darkhaired woman
next to me, peeling oranges,
our pungent air: Muy sabroso