when the shooting stars look down they see

an object with eyes a moving threat

under the black mirror at which you point

to finger-link faint trails that might be a hunter

his belt his faithful dogs or a raven a boar

a river of eyes you have no cover

You are in the dark

Render

to provide a service, do [someone] a favour

to give, supply, make available for inspection

to submit an account or accounts

to deliver a judgement

to give up, surrender

to translate

to translate into form, give shape

to represent in a painting or motion capture

to perform a piece, animate a score

to create an image from binary code

to colour and shade that image

to make it solid

to melt fat down to clarify it

to hand [someone] over to [someone] in another country or territory

to extract protein, fat and other usable parts of a dead animal

the first coat of plaster applied to a brick or stone surface

before it’s whitewashed

Pompeii Mural

the colours have sunk

to evening whispers

the hours have spun out

across the bowl in fine cracks

these poems weren’t written in my garden

I’m driftwood in the wash of a winter sea

in the bowl a globe of honey gleams

the age and shade of amber

brushed with mint leaves

dark tides threaten my pages

this storm could drown out my music

lost avatar of nectar

the harbour I’m steering for is a reef

land holds more terrors than the angry sea

those dusty brown plums

were gorgeous enough once

for senators to eat

before the emperor’s scouts

marked them for the picking

Fly Away, Swim Closer

for Sunil Gawde

The blind lamp is a promise of dawn.

Fly closer, scorch your wings with praise,

grow a skin of distrust.

Somewhere, an insect is drinking the tears of a sleepless bird.

Somewhere, a boy has wormed himself into the roaring jet

that will take him across ice and rain to heaven.

Somewhere, reporters are shrieking as elephants rampage

through cities that used to be grasslands, looking for home.

Light can stun you. Light can sting.

Fly away, swim closer.

Marine Drive

There’s a colour whose name I’ve lost

to the ash fleece of cloud, the grackled light

of a monsoon sky seesawing in the gaze,

unframed, a trap for the sailboat wheeling in the bay:

this colour that hovers between tenses,

some call it violet, others squeeze their eyes shut

when it surges through slate-grey folds of water,

either not-yet or too-late, never tame at your heel.

But look, the rocks are coming into view,

dazed seals resurrected from the waves.

The tide’s worked itself loose of the shore

and drifted out. There are no explanatory notes.

What’s left behind is not the remainder.

There’s a colour whose name I cannot speak.

Natural History

A history of mammoths

salted away in warehouses

scrawled in chalk.