On the deck of the scriptorium ship, Johnny stood, watching the light: dusk was another goodbye. Stella was here. Travel was such a fine form of surrender. The first stars appeared, like a minyan in the sky.
My head is noisy, and democracy is underwater, he thought.
As if in Odysseus’s days, Queen Stella, I salute you. To you I pray.
Take us to your watery highway, bring us to your watery caves, where we might sing of awareness, curiosity, the lost divine, the errant real.
May we all be Kaddish for hire. Let us listen to the sound of the high canting, listen to the sea cantors as they echolocate across the sovereign sonar. We are invisible ink, we are hearsay.
What is the cure for the century? Where is the syringe for the world as it is right now? Into what vein?
I came back, and I
