SWIMMING OVER LONDON
A woman is swimming over London,
a fox turns up his face to see her pass,
there are blackbirds in the sleeping streets,
a pear tree, luminous with blossom:
it’s the dream she always has,
the dream where she’s touching a cloud –
The night is a tide she is pulled by
while a taxicab slumbers underneath,
and a robin is a fish who sings
from a treetop of coral below her:
it’s the dream she always has,
the dream where she’s dancing through air –
Aerials point like signposts
until all the houses are gone,
and fields give way to a beach
where the ocean is calling her name:
it’s the dream she always has,
the dream where she’s swimming over London –
where she sings to the stars like a mermaid
and darkness is a murmur in her hair.