Words by Patricia Elwood
The water pulled her down
But she dragged herself out
From the blood-dimmed tide
Crawled onto the shore
Laid bare on the salty divide
Hair spread like ink on her skin
Black and slippery
She clawed at the sand
Granules bursting capillaries
A desperation for dry land
To escape from the depths
To fill her lungs with air
Let it pass through her neck
But her fingers leaked saltwater
And her flesh reeked of brine
Her body glowed in the sun
Slick with an unnatural shine
She was different when she left
For her wrecked voyage
Upon the ship Mary Celeste
Never to reach the end
Her masts risen in the gauzy sea mist
Lost in the fabric of the waves
She’d hit the seabed when it sank
Trapped as the ship waned
She couldn’t escape the darkness
So she let it fill her inside
It slipped quietly into her mouth
Slithered in through her eyes
It paralysed her with a cool numbness
Spreading down her neck, her arms
In her core, it swirled and surged
Like a thousand screaming storms
And when she tore herself out
From the harsh grasp of the sea
She emerged, wrought
A siren from the deep
A creature of the blue
A wicked, deadly predator
She lured sailors in
With a picture of a girl
A razor-tooth grin
Hungry wet pearls
She chewed them up
And spat out their eyes
Blood seeped into the sand
As she drank and wrung them dry
So she traversed the seven seas
A gasping salt-stained search
For ocean water is no drink
To quench her thirst
