Prolonged Immersion
Rebuke, or pity? Spurning all life-skill guides,
overlooking shellfish jaws and stings that leave
sure swimmers keeling, she dived young, keen to prise,
eviscerate and string the seeds.
The first heave
mesmerised. Sea-tentacles and weed unfurled,
artful to drag her down. The laden wrecks
rebuffed her questing hands. The glass-green swirl
yawed, paused and shifted her past hope of land.
Meshed with slow swells she grins and glides,
adrift on moon-drugged tides, which at their flood
roll, roll her shorewards, till brine cold rhythms guide
this prisoner from deeps misunderstood.
In the sea's time, formless remains are hurled
naked, flesh gorged by seabirds, spent, unpearled.
.
