Yours is the impossible story beyond all stories,

the journey whose end cannot be told by the traveller.

So few have spoken, even from the jetty

where you stand now. Fewer without bitterness.

Time is the narrative thread our joy calls for

and your plot ought to be a printer's error —

or like a novel we re-read, wanting it to end

differently this time, against all reason;

you're young — death too heavy to entertain.

We are atoms that fuse as miracles in time,