† The Pharos of Alexandria (Maarten van Heemskerck, 1570, Engraving)
or heliograph or flare closing the ascent outcome of arcs
coiling outwards from the coast as in mole (eel te tuna ruahine)
or mouth morphing into body dissolving into fervent forms:
Ptolemy standing on his unreal coast Sostratus preparing to strike
his name into stone layers: προς τους θεούς που προστατεύουν τους ναυτιλλομένους
A private dedication but to whom? To Endurance? To the lines
away from or towards the monuments? The important thing is
to resist the bonfire to keep the letters safe (to the gods for the seafaring ones)
I Consecrate I conjugate: I am You are my ardor seventh wonder
chronometer floodlight tangent
I'm going to walk to the lighthouse† Gene, and dive in. But what really happened is that Anthony
and I crossed Misr Station, and walked down Moharrem Bey, and that not far from Charm El Sheik
a watch dealer was synchronising clocks. Five minutes forward, one hour back. Each clock had a
face that opened, and Arabic numbers like bird tracks so slight and unpredictable, that Anthony
bought two. Very Good Time, a seller said, New Time; and he held up a newspaper advertisement
promising 'A touch of the classical, a dash of the futuristic'. And then, later that night, after dinner
on the roof at The Cecil, a Durrell professor in a light linen suit told us we'd have missed the bus
back - but that we could return with him, in his car, and his undercover policeman. And, that he had
fallen in love with Anthony. ('Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence
around us?') And so we sped through the desert dead for the night, headlights dipped and dusty,
time misread, un-located, the waves either side of us indefinite.
