Nostos

The first story ever told was not about gods

or the creation of the world

it was about a woman

and a mirror.

This mirror concealed her beauty,

despite all efforts at adornment,

no matter how hard

she tried.

So she tilted the mirror towards her lips

and whispered a word in its ear

and that word

was a man.

He went out into the world to find her beauty

and bring it home to her. Caravels,

triremes, space probes:

all were launched.

They say there was a thousand ships. Mine

was one. The route was a tangle

that took me through nights

whose horizon

was marked by where the slow star-set

met itself reflected in calm still waters,

and home emerged at last

where this confluence slit the sky open.

And it brought me back, with the message

as it had first been told

the world exists to make my love

a better mirror for your soul.