I mourn the tides of the sea, siren’s calls

that once reached my ears fall deaf,

lost in a roaring mob. I reach out 

to the ocean, to the blue, to love.

I cry for what I am allowed to, for

no music, for the silence, for my

dry skin, for the fish at the grocery store, 

but not for the siren song.

I scream into the night,

wounds opening in my 

raw throat and bleeding into my 

lungs until I cannot sing. Morning,

I wipe away my tears, sip at

freshwater, kiss the pearly grooved 

surface of a clamshell. 

I paint the sirens in the sand,

tranquil, smiling, light. I watch 

as the sea passes over it and they remain,

untouched. But when the mob

approaches, their visages shatter,

sand washing away amongst the blood.

When I am washed away,

Too,

The legend on the sirens passes to another.