The tiny maps were true to us,

Leading us into the darkened gold of mermaid caves deep within sleep, brown windows no on else could ever open. Enchanted, we groped our blind packages of loss, fingers brailling tapestries of hunger. We climbed elaborate stairways of dust together to hear the whispered poems of tooth, bone and wing, to find stories of the ancient spiral told by its invisible inhabitants. We hunted save colors in those palaces of intrigue until our tongues went numb from the salted taste of the glacial swells and our clumsy heads were deafened by surge and drum. Clasping hands, we followed seaweed paths into tomorrow, drank deep from starry wells, and folded many kinds of darkness into our chests, where we kept their beats both secret and alive.