Downstream and up

Passing downstream, tongue weighed down by Charon’s obol

The taste of metal fixed forever inside the mouth that never found the words

Safely transpired now, lightweight and lost

Blinking into the black star-charted sky

And the things that hide in the deep, watchful of the final journey, feel nothing

They can’t know

They can’t know this body that I have carried

The body that was touched by hands that were soft, tender and sometimes rough

The things it lost, regained and lost again, for ever
Their eyes don’t fall upon the secret markings, the treasure map of life
They have no inkling of

this momentous shattering of a continuum

This washing of the ultimate tide

that leaves us clean, clear and cold