Ocean Bride (Poetry)

I walk the long shoreline, searching
as though I am expecting him to come
beating up through purple waves —
parting the deep water with warrior arms
ploughing those unfenced acres — spraying surf
the sun steaming off his shoulders
fine-scaled, his armour muscled with the light
and water running off him as he nears
when a shadow falls — its chill undoes the sigh
I’m holding back — the dream sinks down — away.

The seawind teases me with salt to blue my tears
my skin is crystalled by its tireless tongue —
a mongrel tide annoints my feet with lies
and offers this strange comfort
all night long — and often dark days, too —
my eyes find the horizon thin and stretched
the ocean hushed — expectant — shallow-breathed
enticing its mythology to birth
a god as hero in the shape of man
to issue forth and kill the demon lonely with no name.

I read the tell-tale symbols in the sand —
strange footprints the ocean would deny
and suck the evidence away before
it could be measured — truly understood.
But I think fey — determined and unfooled
by emptiness and silence — so I wait
unpicking shells and looking for deceit
to peel away its layers —
sift and weigh the shifting, drifting grit
eroding down the years.

I mark each tide’s slow turn and send
a message out to sea — a code
in ribbon-wreathed wild flowers —
sea thrift wound with silver threads of hair
bobbing small and lost on all that play
of tumbling marine —
fish-nibbled buds whose tender hearts might draw
him close to land — a lure that pretty pink
of romance and high fantasy’s imagining —
love’s dream of Neptune and his mortal bride.