MIRAGE Poem by Eva Cox

A pool of earth billows and steams in the summer sun.

Tombstones, flat slow barges, sail past me,
the cross a crooked mast.
There's no wind, it is the sandy ground itself
that inches its way forward.
Where is the journey headed for, I want to ask.

There's no answer.

Sitting on the quay wall on this strange Sunday afternoon
I see them disappear one by one.
They tilt over the edge of my vision
into the vortex of an hour-glass perhaps.

Who shall say.