The monstrous sapphire
lies in her lavish dowry
Crowned by Casinos
set with Provençal
olives
and spears to the mistral

The prevalent Fair
draws idle tides
over volcanic privacies
frilled with the rouse and hush of drowsing foam

Jewelled on her Adriatic arm
Venice, sarcophagus of sighs
and ghostly merchandise,
Splinters on the opal angle of the sun
and dies to the Angelus

an over purpled peach
swarmed by the flies of dusk

From the green incline
of vengence
the Vesuvian vine
drips lucently
Lacrimae Christi
to drift imperceptibly
with the lost sob of Shelley

Hewn in the Apuane
Carrara stands
as marble sentinel

beyond the blazing rust
of branches
roofing amphibian babies

as they rise

from the Ligurian gullies
Their polished thighs
armoured with aqueous ashes
of the tinselled sands.