My child, brought from his own country,
is sleeping in a Cape bed
where the black south-easter
delivers boats and fish
to his hot summer dream
of kelp and tentacles
that hang like fingers from his hands.

In his other dream
pines, like ravens blue with cold,
fly into the ice,
and snow falling from low branches
sifts onto his thin chest.

As he calls in the dark,
‘Come’, ‘Go’,
the sea invades the low lagoon
and the red cardinal shaken from his sheet
flies into its dense natal tree.