Gold-beater’s skin, it is called, membrane

from the intestine of a cow: of this the bags

are made, ten-storey high, that will lift

like long-winded folios, the airship

to immortality – intoning across the country

Willington  Welwyn    Hyde Park   Deal

and out among salt fantasies, the mouths

of the Nile and Indus, to anchor upon masts

tall as those I climbed and fought from.

Rigging on the air that plays the golden

pavan of an empire: the transparent skins

of hydrogen swell with courtly pride.