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Ferry
After Tom Hammick, Ferry, 2008, edition variable soft ground etching
Which is moving, the quayside
 or the ferry as it slips
into night taking him
to the other side, another island
dimly seen, the familiar outlines
of where he’s been with her
always in his mind, senses awakened
by obscure scents eddying
between drift and direction
lassitude and necessity always
aboard or ashore, the nearer
to one the further from the other
but never far from either.
*
What is moving is his heart
his head in that other place
over the water, demarcation
between the solitary and conjoined,
view of misty shapes of the unreal
city arising at water’s edge
slowly approaching vita nuova
city of shameless desires
anticipated and enacted
for a time, and then the return
across the water to that other
world of works and days.
© 2008 Robert Vas Dias
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