“Very like a whale”

A geography of clouds drifts
across my sun-bed sky.
Tectonic plates shift
valleys split
form continents, deform,
sail into new-found-lands.
Chains of islands pass –
the sand-dune sines of Norderney
Juist and Sylt
the basking curves of Brac and Hvar
Korcula
Peljesac.
Now Corsica and lizard-Cyprus join
all the scorpion islands of the south.

Myth breaks in –
through tamarisk tails
Neptune rises headless –
great thighs stretching into sky.
A ghostly head, punctured with azure eyes
swells hydrocephalic with rain
turns feline grey, speeds on
till nothing`s left
but one fine eyebrow arching
in the clearest sky.

© Ann Segrave
Plakias, Crete 2010
visit her website here