an itinerant ghost settles on the surface of an itinerant pool.
------
weightless
resting upon the surface of the water.
weightless
without the once-protruding bone at her back.

but she borrows weight once again for just a minute, delving her elbows into the shallow pool.
she fishes out a stone without needing to search.
it has been long-buried:
the foundation of a collapsed cairn.

it is an ordinary stone, shrouded in a layer of mud and algae.
she scrubs her paws over it, revealing the impossible luster beneath.
as she cradles it, equally impossible lights blink into the stitch-gaps left between the stars.
a spectacle almost forgotten, nearly foreign to her in its nostalgia.

she exhales. she remembers.

_this place... my father and i used to come here.
i never told... that's why i knew it,_
she says to no-one in particular.

_it's okay to be alone,_
answers the wind, cadence cascading ripples across the inkblot at her feet.
the stars wobble.
she looks up at the steadily burning ones,
but the water collecting at her eyes makes _everything_ wobble.
a sharp damp ache blooms in the back of her throat.

_i know.
i know i know i know._

_it is just the first time_

_in a long time_

_where i've been barren._

{October 2021}