Sirens

Little girl,

your brain full of glass,

there are footprints

that would swallow you whole

if you found them.

You would like it here

where the sea spray kisses 

the lip of the bluff.

Sometimes, I stand at the edge

of disappearing,

and then—what delight

to spy first a finger,

next a toe

as the sunlight leads me back.

Still, I can hear that sea

in my sleep,

and there’s such relief in knowing

the waves keep crashing

whether I watch them or not.

I’d be surprised

if you couldn’t hear them too.

Already you know 

there’s a skin 

at the end of your bed.

It’s only a matter of time

before you learn 

you can swim.

Anna cries on the other side of the door,

crouching over porcelain,

her almost-child a watercolor

dissolving towards the sea.

She cries for me

but will not let me in.

Her sobbing tessellates

in waves across the floor.

She cries names I do not recognize,

and then, for God, 

whom I would beg to pluck her up 

and knot her back together

if only He would hear

Anna crying on the other side of the door,

a nest of hair gathering

the small birds of her hands.

Let the ice cubes melt in your Scotch

if a shy brunette 

with disastrous breasts

asks for the time.

Every hourglass is wearing a corset.

It’s what a woman lets loose 

that counts.