BAIAE

Noon estranged all living things,

Taking black heaven;

Sucking in the sea, the (seven) hills.

 

We trek.

 

Irretrievables progressed, are away. We edge off

The rim of everything; the sea stasis attends

A gull’s catechisms, face wrapped in

 

Evening wedding veils

 

That genuflect diaphanously

To the ruins, Roman places. Basking silence–

The world’s work, deceitful as the sun.

 

I think

 

The sea couldn’t sink hunger, setting its all-jaw haunting

On eternity, so took the town’s three quarters, opened a museum,

Lined its stone men staring unseeing for no-one.

 

They do not know

 

The deeps are cold, or where the world went.

The pour of moon and days are choked

To vacancy. Still, creation breeds caricatures:

 

See—

 

Sea-shells for eyes! Man hanged for daring.

His inchoate boot and great valved shoot

Lopped off, like summer poppies at Gabii.

 

My heart fevers

 

Under the abominable absolutions of sunset, maddening

Distances, unholdable as I. Oh god, am I

An amnesia like the bird fading painted on its maker’s portico.

 

Looking to you,

 

Heart cupped as a crocus to your smile setting

That evening in some sort of certain grace

But in your eyes those skies darken

 

In distances. 

 

Words by Aneurin Quinn Evans. Art by Emily Reed.