Thirst (A Siren Song)

You heard me singing, but could not see.

Couldn't find my lemon-lime

skin dipped in blue,

yet my song called out to you.

(Have you always been color blind?)

I clung to the rocks as you charted the way,

(I remember the day)

and I floated beneath the glassy sheen,

sunlight reflecting your image to me

in a watery haze. I saw you that way.

From under the sea I lured you to me

with a note.

A single deep tone

which echoed the moan of my yearning.

I was burning.

The fire, the flood of my boiling blood

came first.

Next came the thirst.

It wasn't enough to watch you sail by -

my sisters content to make you capsize like the rest,

but not I.

I changed my tune.

From the low, deep tone which had always enticed

pirates, sailors, and men of the sea

to dive, mad, into waters of death's certainty,

I sang high. You heard a dolphin's cry,

until you saw

me.

What thoughts crossed your mind?

I may never know.

I guessed at your eyes, as they met mine

below the watery veil which flowed between us.

The boundary of our worlds.

You thought you'd discovered the pearl of the sea,

the treasure of me,

and I mistook the look. Forsook my home,

my life, and family

and rose from the water to the rock, to thee.

The flash of my fish skin blinded,

my feet crippled beneath.

My body transformed, my cold blood

warmed with my love for you.

At last, you understood the tune.

I reached for you then, wobbling and shaking

as my new legs were quaking on the tip of the rock;

you were making me walk the jagged edging,

a shock.

I was moving towards you. To you. For you.

Slowly, as my steps, your ship pulled away.

You never did say or speak or sing

a word to me, as you watched me fall.

Blood on my knees, as I called to you,

"My love! My love, I am here!"

Only a tear. A drop of salt from your lashes

only mine ears could hear.

I watched you then, as you sailed the sea

to the lands of your home,

a nomad, so free.

Not me.

I have been bound to this stone

alone, eternally,

each day awaiting your return

to me.

My blood still a-boil, I suffer this heat.

A traitor to salt water, I no longer may feast

as it brittles my bones, and parches my throat.

No tail now to swim, a lifeless body only

to float 'round this prisoner's isle.

But what hurts the most?

This thirst,

unquenched,

for the love of your ghost.