The men not returning to the oars. Jason allowing the slow progress of the sail, the sun breaking through overhead, clouds dissipating. Day long and air hot and thick. Heading toward some distant shore unnamed.

Time. Never steady. Always quickening or slowing. A day can be of any length, and a ship drifting through an open sea makes the longest day.

One of the men sings. A voice that seems to come from farther over the water, not originating here. Mournful song. She thinks he must be missing someone. Argonauts only a band of men, without name, as inanimate as wood, until one reveals himself like this. The fisherman and now the singer, missing some woman, perhaps, wanting to be somewhere else, opening of a life. His eyes closed and head fallen back, face tilted toward the sky. Alone and every other man made alone, and Medea, too. The men will not look at each other, each traveling singly into another time. Hollow voice, low and lost, rising in desire and falling again. The world collapsing all around them, far places brought close.

Every life short and also endless, and song a way back, wandering. His face almost flat, darkened mask, but that mouth, caving. Medea closes her own eyes, sees willows along the river, summer heat and shade but then winter and the making of bread, her nurse, a man whipped, the forest when she was older and then, falling back, her young brother, lying on the bank talking about a future Colchis with himself as king, fanciful visions in which he and Medea invented how all in Colchis should walk on one hand and one foot or sleep in bundles or hang upside down to eat and drink. Their sister Chalciope saying their father would be king forever, no future king. Every time in memory living inside every other, with no separation, no distance between, and Medea doesn’t understand how this can be, how all can collapse. A voyage at sea nothing by comparison, no distance traveled at all.

Day in which all are lost, even after the song’s end. A far shore appearing, and after sunfall they drop the sail, anchor and go ashore for the night.

Small fire, no bodies covered in oil, no shouting or loud songs. A simple meal of fish and water and the men exhausted still, disappearing into the forest to sleep, souls around a fire vanishing one by one. The wind no more than a murmur in the pines, the air warm.

Medea follows Jason into the trees, where he lays hides on pine straw and they move slowly and she feels a tenderness for him, wanting to hold his face in her hands. The night seems perfect to her, and she does not feel alone. As he falls into sleep, she lies on his chest and feels her love for him. Some softness inside her, as foreign as this place.

15

15