Archipelago: The Soporific Well

                         Some of them drank one cup, others two, and the rest three. The last were overcome by a sleep of three days and three nights.

                         THE VOYAGE OF SAINT BRENDAN

After days of thirst, the island appears as hands bringing the sea up

       to a mouth, its leaves like drops of water across a palm.

I step from my boat onto its shore, walk through the trees

       for hours, looking for a creek, deer tracks, any sign

of life. I reach a well cradled by roots and stones. Inside

       sits a brightness of milk, like a muted word.

I drink three handfuls, open my eyes in a field of terrible white.

       There is a well in the center, and inside it a darkness

with no reflection. I think: lost sound with no one to hear it,

       sound of the dead, your voice, which is like the moment

a star closes its wave of light, which is like my body

       curled on the ground. Where I wake. My head opens

its eyes, terrified the rest of its body rots in the well. Three days

       bloom a purple garden in my mouth. No animal comes to eat

the constellation of blossoms, this waking the distant expansion

       of a universe that cannot feel us.