Why must I see as if the course were charted
the ways that we unravel? Once, you
were the faith I built on, the solid place
I traveled to, the city whose liquid streets I
endlessly investigated—happy architecture, pillars,
cornices, bridges—the gondola of my imagination poling
around bends, startled at the journey ever inward and
most comforting of all, where I could remain forever.
When did it happen, tell me, that this easy adventure
became a knotty maze, anxious alleys to be dead-ended in?
When did the trap of not emerging into a sunlit square
become the suffocation of a psyche—a silent badge
that I wear now, knowing that in a few short years I will step
away exhausted? My time grows nearer when I will try
for the open sea—alone I can blame no one
when the final storm overreaches and downs my craft.

—Justine Cook ...

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