I lived in shadow
along the edge of wet stairs,
watched stone lose out
to the incursion of lapping insistence,
a place where I gathered myself, a sensation
of cold and sometimes not so cold, even warm
as sun bullied its way through iron railings.
Which way? I heard myself ask,
no longer a barnacle stationed for eternity
at some breathing crack
I was never going to leave.
I was never going to leave.
I grew up as the Gatekeeper,
the one who ferries shadows across the chasm,
back and forth I watched men and women,
lips drawn into a horizon as they dredged fear
from a bucket of cold blood,
who knew the water like the back of my hand,
sang a dirge and understood how some things can only be faced.
Never have I spoken until you bordered my craft,
etching rivulets with your finger across the saw-toothed waves,
consumed by a hope that toys with us all and makes fools famous.
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