Land ho — and yet the shore is a rumor, whispers wilting wind currents.
We dock for a breath, Perseus at the prow, eyes like chipped coins, peeled towards the horizon.
Then down they go: into the furnace mouth, descending down the dragon’s throat, two by two, Virgil and Danté, hymnless.
The labyrinth swallows light; the spire remembers us, tosses wafts of what is what and some more burnt.
Hellfire braids pins through charred skin, atom from atom undone, every body unspooling its private geography.
Silence becomes the ledger; screams supply the ink—laments, songs of suffering, for a death that will never arrive.
In dream and waking alike the riders murmur for dunes, for the slow mercy of sand, a wishful escape, for eternity’s measure inside a single sleeping pill.