Philae

The door of the south,

Where frontiersmen stand and watch

Elbowed dog-wise against the rumour

Of Africa.

The sky stretched,

A dirigible anchored to demotic towers -

Half-deserted, effluvial.

A surety of sound and shining light

To beat the breast against

And worship waist-deep in hands

That tilled the salty earth

No less than home.

The burden of Egypt,

The burden of the desert of the sea.

Fatness sluiced clean,

Streets emptied utterly into pits

Girded with chalk and bone.

Tarweed takes root and

Its appetite carves sharp to sign the paper,

Cleave the land.

In a time of dates that rot from inside out

And will not dry

The boat rocks on the water like a drum.