sometimes it seems my only pleasure
to walk the place where magic meets the real

and my feet can feel sharply undivided power
while my hair rejoices in infinitely divided skies

and day bids goodbye to the dunes with a sun-kiss
as the night’s fire-tipped preludes drip into the water

it was here I met someone
another darkening rock, but for the words that he used

he told me he’d come here not to die
but on the brink of death

perhaps drawn here by all the brinks spread out before him-
the dappling blood-sun, the bitter waves

‘we are old,’ said he, ‘we are of the stones, not the water’
and the sea about him lapped in protest

and the clouds began to hurry
and the sky loosed some color into our faces

his feet now were wetted by the seeping sea
and as I went he warned me of a thousand splintered universes

and I chased the unknown, and he sank off the edge
and into stars the great skies shuddered, yet unclaimed