From first allures to frenzied gasps,
no warmth within these waves' embrace
while siren songs sink sailors' hopes
of knowing land or home again.

Swoon by skull, that tally swells
of navigators lost within
her resistless reveries,
beguiling mermaid doomed to drown

everyone she dares enchant
because these tides entwine her curse
with magic indissoluble
- except where love may blindly dive

inside her oceanic eyes
to empathize, at certain depths,
some sunken mercies, if regret,
her hidden quest: in bliss be freed

from all this coastal loneliness,
to swim and breathe beyond her plight
awaking in this sea of bones
- at last to hold, be held, and live,

return, no longer tempting trusts
untouchably, no longer caught
in flotsam possibilities
but plunging into arms and life

courageous, keen, headlong, aflame.