A dark chasm lies between us.
The meandering type on a page
forms into fluid syllables,
enabling us to reach across
the black abyss
to connect, recognize
deep calling unto deep,
and hold one another close
against the snakey darkness.
Without words, we are flooded
by the loneliness of silence
moving swiftly up our shores
to inundate all with the despair of chaos
that has existed since before Word
choreographed creation’s dance.
Only a word holds nothingness at bay
as a dam compels the flow of order
which solitude would sweep away.
Give me, then, such words
as will quench my thirst for you.
Let me swim in your language,
languid in the liquid languor of love.
Allow me to dive deep into the experiences
out of which they are wrought
until I am caught in the woven sedge
of memory’s narrative vows
about how to navigate your world.
As semantic selkie,
I will slip between mythic mystery
of these fluid words
to merge with you in thought
until such time as solitude calls
us to our respective shores
from which we longingly listen
for the babble of living water
rippling to reach once more.
______________________________________________________________________This poem is one of the three 2025 winners of the Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize.