(in honour of Hans Arp)
if the chain of snow breaks
the seas would slide away
fish would fly
boats would starve
refugee icicles beg scraps from
broken rings of crystal stunned by vacuum
nighthawks survive by eating
the rags they claim to be the night
of the incredible snowstorm
the blind did not notice
inexorable demands would drag everyone down
gravity would create magnetic forces
melding everyone into magma
the landscape would slither
like a tablecloth floating on the water
a rock thrown into the middle
and the fabric slides into the black
crater like a legendary sea monster
shakes its flukes and
disappears
forever
Peterborough Poets 