[At last, to be identified!

] BY REBECCA HAZELTON A dirigible powered us through the first leg, traversing snow-capped mountains where goats leapt from crags, and men with wrinkled apples faces looked up, pointed.

Smiling to cold air, I slept under a bear skin, touched your lips in the night.

On our pleasant soap bubble journey, we dropped baskets down each morning, hooked meats, cheeses; in later weeks, nothing. Still, we took notes,

detailing the weather conditions, the migrating elk numbers and their steady decrease. Northward by cracked compass, the sleet sheeting the balloon drove us low, then lower

In time we cut through the ice, sank fathoms into the sea, chaperoned by seals that are not mermaids at all.

Else you think this a hoax, know my hand

down here stillplease send help.