Barcarolle

By Peter Halstead

The ruined heavens split
The rigging one last time,
Pushed by buckling in the planet
To coat the bay in rime,

To trace the slip
Of phosphorescent lights
As monstrous ripples ship
Around a sky of ice,

Sheets that splinter in the air
Like seas failing in the deep,
Broken worlds whose dying glare
Burns like fuses in our sleep,

Fireballs whose forked extremes
Spray us shipwrecked into dreams.