Few things are more intimate
than riding on this river cat
through vapour foulards
furling their diaphanous cocoon.
The salt tang as we near the mouth,
ghost bollards looming through the fog:
this could be Cornwall in the autumn,
a Baltic coast in mist...
But no, those fishbone skeletons
of pines that blur like wash-furred ink
are place markers whose glyphs are signs
denoting southern hemisphere.