this is from before she lost her key.
she said, “today i’m off to see how many steps it is from here to Siren’s Shore.”
she was gone for half the week (though it seemed more.) when she returned, she didn’t speak to me for seven days and nights. she turned off all the lights, and though she smiled when she saw me, i knew she’d as likely claw me if i lingered—she’d done this once before, and i still wore the mark she used to tell me, “wait”—so i kept to middle distance and made patience my persistence, sure she’d soon enough share all she could relate, and on day eight she told me:
at my outset i wandered in the snowing, knowing we who lose our way in winter clearest hear the hymn to spring.
i serenaded the small and the strong, for if you seek to find a song’stress, the surest way is simple: stretch and sing.
i walked in wicked weather for a while, following a trail of feathers to my anthem’s musing isle, and there i found them—lolling in their meadow by the sea.
i said, “how many steps is that?”
she grinned, and shook her head, and whispered: “three.”