Merchants of Cyrene, close your palms On the last remaining place A sprig of Silphium grows The silvery cold of a coin face The boats have all vanished from the slimey harbourwalls Apollonia emptied to reveal all How we are lost Bowed to the hearthlight Telling our girls why we'll have to be leaving Fat teardrops roll Off the bluffs of our cheekbones Orangey globes Spent with a hiss on the dying coals No more sap of laserwort to grate Over braised flamingo hearts Or render into a salve To purge the uterus lining Nothing left to sprinkle on the boiled brains of sheep Other than this cheap asafoetida How we are lost Loading the oxcart With a halfmoon Filled of our meagre possession Tying it fast With twine from my uncle's shop And now I must wake the girls Darlings, quick to the courtyard How we are lost Scrolling the highway Leaving behind the only home we have ever known Lamp on a pole Eyes glued to the bouldered road In my mouth, a moth goes and instantly perishes Halting the cart I stop to listen Cows in the dark Bells at the edge of the ocean Mingle with snores - A child sleeping in my earhole I feel alive How we are lost in each other Merchants of Cyrene that you hold Let them go