the edge of the world



	clouds move across the sky like scales of fish
	one star glints against the flecked dark
	the low fires of dawn haunt the horizon
	while the dark recedes like a tide

	the low clouds swallow you and i
	the the belly of the white whale we wander
	unable to find our star, our voices echo

	the clouds try to hold one morning back
	night clings to them
	swaths of reluctant indigo

	dawn rends the night
	the clouds cling to darkness
	tatters and filaments lit from below the horizon
	the enemy fires them from below
	rose-purple and orange fires lash them back
	toward and over the edge of the world