If you were lost, how would I find you,
what path take along dark streets, through
damp vaults, how untangle those choices
far underground, those myriad voices?

If I were gone, you could no longer follow
through great spillways, or deep hollows.
In that world, my footsteps would fade,
there would be no echo, no light or shade.

Still, somewhere your presence ahead
would call, through realms of the dead,
through time imploded and turned back,
platform deserted, abandoned track.

No pause in this long pursuit, this seeking
that has no end. Neither of us speaking,
or able to break the spell—neither chase
nor surrender. Only the lost, familiar face.

- Jared Carter, Laodamia to Protesilaus, from The Raintown Review