Aphrodite

Ascending south east from Manchester, over

Eyam, the ‘plague village’, towards the Wash;

cruising over the Channel, observing

the shipping below me with wonder like some

latter day Bleriot; then Rotterdam’s docks

and the Rhine; sun glinting momentarily

like fireflies, and I am nonchalant

as Icarus, mindful as Daedalus,

noting place names freighted with histories;

past Munich, and the bared Austrian Alps,

then due south along the Balkan Mountains,

smoke drifting north from polluting fires,

roads following the contours, rivers the colour

of onyx; then the coast, and sea water

the westing sun has turned to mercury,

with Mycenae rightwards, leftwards Troy;

descending over the Dodecanese

to Cyprus – island of Aphrodite,

wine and olive trees, worked out copper mines,

abandoned churches – with its new money

and its old divisions.