Taste of the silken web I’ve woven on the weaver’s beams.
I sat belowdecks, hunched,
ankles against knees, crossing my fingers and sighing for your skin,
conceptualizing hekatontakismyrioi in my head
and wishing I might hold one in my hands.
I bit my lip.
The oil tipped out of the lamp and splattered burning on my paper,
Spreading sepia fingers to smear my words golden;
the ink swam and the beams creaked.
Now I hear the sails battering against themselves, while in the corner
lies my life’s tapestry – half-hid, half-spun, glistening.
We, you, me, are sailing into the mist,
further away from civilization,
in search of a sunken cathedral draped in the depths.
Underneath the rain dents, the darting plops, the collective rampage, the heart of the ocean
opens wide to drink it in;
And sighs.
The dimples in my tapestry bide from my tongue.
I test it and try it for taste, and I remember
The cold nights in the garret, rubbing my arms,
warm hands and humid,
hot showers,
running through the night
and waiting for the day to break.
I sail on a ship through the Nowhere Sea,
But when night is over,
and the ripe sun falls over the horizon,
I will not forget the other stars:
They showed me your night.