He sleeps, while I writhe.
My legs sea serpents dancing
to an ancestral song,
silken skin, smooth, reptilian —
I’ve ached too long.

He dreams of clocks and duties,
while mystery gyrates —
Calypso’s desire in me.
But his passion’s pulse,
more near to death than sleep,
lies drowned, flattened;
a ghostly galleon on the seabed.

There must be more than this —
my belly, blood, breath agree —
for pulling, twisting, gasping,
I must myself please.

At long last, spit out, washed up
of rolling waves, upon longing’s shore —
a salty, glistening, uncoiled creature,
in the light of the new day’s sun.