Hopes and dreams, fed
into a canal like bits of paper tossed
against a fervent breeze,
tiny messages trapped within a bottle
crying out against their captors-
shrill voices echo off of the blackened glass
walls,
a broken record spinning violently off
course-
who we are, contained within the
folds of a sealed envelope-
who we are, words written blindly by
scattered grains of dust,
our fingerprints standing out
like beacons amid the brackish storm-
hands move quickly,
scrambling to collect the hopes and dreams
feeding the canal like bits of paper tossed
into the wind,
diving to the depths of the tarn to recover
the blackened bottles and the lost
voices within-
our favorite song plays beneath those waters*