Charon
the silent oar across the black water
waterCharon ferries the dead across the Styx for a single coin, refusing all who come unpaid or unburied; to dream of him is to be asked what you have settled and what you still owe, before the far shore will accept you.
Fragments
Hour on hour he leans into the same slow current, the pole rising and falling, the far shore never nearer for him, ferrying others to a rest he will never take.
He speaks no comfort and asks no name; he only holds out his hand for the fare, and the unpaid he leaves to wander the near bank a hundred restless years.
ferryriverpassagetollsilence