Contraflow
Asleep under a ceiling of bird wings.
Some distance off, gaps
in the clattering of gulls.
A lick of salt
in the mouth of the river.
On a chair in the corner
a medium and her cornflour
ectoplasm stretches slick globs
in the alarm clock’s light.
It’s the middle of the night.
The river reaches in.
Across the floor, anchored fronds
with tiny curling claws.
Swamp smell of fertilizer.
Sperm from deepwater vents. Pustules of rust
hollow pockmarks in the hull of the Lusitania.
Fifty miles east of Brazil
a rush of migrating Arctic Terns
feel for a turn in the wind.
A ripple through architecture of feather and bone.
Mark Ryan Smith lives in the Shetland Islands