Poem of the Week

A rare dish is right for those who

have lain bandaged in a tomb for weeks:

quince and quail to demonstrate

that fruit and birds still grow on trees,

eels to show that fish still needle streams.

Rarer still, some blind white crabs,

not bleached but blank, from such

a depth of ocean that the sun would drown

if it approached them. Two-thirds

of the earth is sea; and two-thirds of that sea

-away from currents, coasts and reefs –

is lifeless, colourless, pure weight.