The Summons

(4) Horizons


Horizons

Ablaze at sunset.

Dotted with wind-turbines, cartwheeling grey flamingos.

Two shades of machine metal, bisected by a stray hair.

When the sea is black and the sky is black, and you know it more like a sound.

Indistinguishable from our own but for two moons hovering.

New and full of possibility.

Ablaze again, only this time it isn’t sunset.

Rotated ninety degrees

A glasswork paperweight with frozen petrol bloom sitting on a grey-flecked mirror.

In every direction you look – north, south, east, west – and you realise too late the old merchant sold you a bad map.

Rotated 360 degrees.

Grasped, drawn in close, right up to the eyes, and still never, never to see beyond