Siren Song by Christina Lewis

Come. Quick. Hurry. 

Come. Quick. Hurry.

Come.

Quick.

Hurry.

Listen. Listen. Listen.

 

We’re far, so far from home,

Our scales spread like the news we bring

From depths beyond your understanding

Or, it seems, your care.

 

Well, do you?

Care?

 

Our tired tails yawn like thin elastic,

Stretched from winding through the plastic,

Poison,

Waste

That you insist on forcing through our veins. 

 

So take a finger to the wind,

the same wind in the sails

of ships whose ancient wreckage nods

to carrier bags and bottle tops and plastic rings

and things we know not of,

but only what we’ve found ourselves.

 

Unplug your beeswax.

Tie yourself to a mast, if you must.

But guard your spirit well.

 

We see what’s been and yet to come,

The clearest sun-filled pools to depths charged with the poisons

Of what should never, ever, have begun.

 

Look. Look.

Look.

 

Everything you love’s alight,

Night is day and day is night,

And while you ponder what it means,

Seas will swell and drown your dreams

will swell and drown your dreams

Seas will swell

and drown your dreams,

Until we’re purged of your disease.