Toward the End

In this archipelago of thought a fog descends, horns of ships to unseen
ships, a year
passing overhead, the cry of a year not knowing where, someone standing
in the aftermath 

who once you knew, the one you were then, a little frisson of recognition,
and then just like that—gone, and no one for hours, a sound you thought 

you heard 

but in the waking darkness is not heard again, two sharp knocks on the
door, death
it was, you said, but now nothing, the islands, places you have been, the sea
the uncertain, 

full of ghosts calling out, lost as they are, no one you knew in your life, the
moon above 

the whole of it, like the light at the bottom of a well opening in iced air 

where you have gone under and come back, light, no longer tethered
to your own past, and were it not for the weather of trance, of haze and
murk, you could see 

everything at once: all the islands, every moment you have lived or place
you have been,
without confusion or bafflement, and you would be one person. You would
be one person again.