Charon Speaks to Psyche

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 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, while I, 

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(mythology)

http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/greek_goddess_psyche.htm