I walked in, careless,
to my ankles.
It seemed all right.

the water licked smooth,
around my lower bones.
the tickle of cold
the bump of rocks
silty sand,
squishing up into
the spaces around my arch.
another step, and the pull.
the tease of the tide, lap-lapping
like a hungry feral kitten at found milk.
the snickering of the current
told little lies to my calves
about the depth and its strength
seducing and tugging.
Comecomecomecomecomecomecome
I looked upriver. Dark sunk
into the trees.
Crows sailing up, over the line of evergreens.
Solid.

I awoke suddenly from my murky forward-trance.
Halting my progression.
In over my knees.
Violently chilled.

Clarity dissolved upon my senses,
Remembering my native element,
I spoke my rejection to the  liquid Rake.

'This is not my place.
as long as I have breath.
and I will not lie with you upon your bed.
You have no thumbs, for coffee,
you have no heart for truth, although
secrets, of this, I am sure you hold, many.
No mouth for reading,
and trust-
I already have circling my finger,
and am tied in my heart, to one with eyes and lungs.
Some marry the sea, but I have married a Man.'

So I placed my heel behind my shoulder,
yanking hard against the rules of the moon,
up-tripping
backwards across sudden boulders.

Feeling the sick squirm of a game
almost lost,
a hallucination perhaps of-
the gurgle of a defeated laugh
chasing me back to the bank
I pushed away.

On the  shore, damp-dry grass of another month
lay beneath my feet

The River showed me shimmering calm.
nature just nature again-
a  vast. sleeping creature with no possible interest in Eve. but
From the droplets of water on my legs dripped a separate truth.

I turned away from the leaves and fish.
drying and donning shoes.
And went all the way back
a Flower still,
to The Land.