This story circles the earth
like a river scribbling a message
of scars and songs and a something-else,
swirling like old-fashioned script
beyond the binding of a book.

A vagabond leaves the trail of words
dropping from palms stained with ink,
blue from a wet horizon.
The salt of three seas press to her lips
as they part.

The wind brings songs to quench her word-thirst.
Syllables soak the world with sound
and the air fills with the smell before rain,

She tastes phrases of perhaps
and imagines the final page as a picture book:
a rowboat anchored with hope.