From the Peninsula by Ishion Hutchinson

From the Peninsula

The old trees shake out medals at midday

to the ship paused for a meteor’s blunting

glimpse in the windy yellow of the water,

partway to inventing another world.

Through the window’s tiger slats,

the bakery pumps smoke, years between

her irretrievable shawl, which crimsons

what I see, watching further and further,

until canisters shatter into nitrate stars,

late at night, saluting an unforgiving song.

I tilt down on her iron bed and cluster

haunted basil, the scent rifts morning open

to argon of cobwebs, the dim cargo, the bent

hills, the black gold, her hands, clasped

shut her children, long gone, under the sea.