L'Artiste Naufragée (The Shipwrecked Artist)
The wind pulled me and I drifted out.
My boat was not fit for the maelstrom,
its mast a tall shaft, which broke in silence.
As my body entered the water,
I felt the surge of blood rush to my head,
the cold, a shock and thrill all at once.
I did not swim, but allowed myself
to be pulled further and further away
from the remnants of wood that once shaped my home while at sea.
The net was fine, a mist in the water, like seaweed to the touch,
it grasped my legs and pulled me out until I had not the choice to rest,
but was beckoned to the shore and safe haven in the moonlight.
My body a white marble, shaped in subtle tones of shadow, it twisted
as if life had left it and the rocks tossed it about sullenly
breaking me into consciousness. I entered it again reluctantly
and feeling its pain, I grasped my breast to know that I was still alive,
a nipple hardening insistent in the cold air, defiant, and belligerent.
An awakened seal, I felt my way through sleep, twirling my limbs in the seaweed,
a humble effort to cover my soft skin with this thin membrane.
Alas, my eyes still closed,I fell into myself as if a clam returned to her shell,
my body hastening to create a sheath of slick pearlescent splendor
to cover that which abused me with its brashness, the hard crystalline sand
of experience, again a gemstone sought after by those who would abuse me, violently.
I close my dreams until another day, a castaway on the island of inference,
an isolated spot, where I find solace, in contemplating another drought.
My boat was not fit for the maelstrom,
its mast a tall shaft, which broke in silence.
As my body entered the water,
I felt the surge of blood rush to my head,
the cold, a shock and thrill all at once.
I did not swim, but allowed myself
to be pulled further and further away
from the remnants of wood that once shaped my home while at sea.
The net was fine, a mist in the water, like seaweed to the touch,
it grasped my legs and pulled me out until I had not the choice to rest,
but was beckoned to the shore and safe haven in the moonlight.
My body a white marble, shaped in subtle tones of shadow, it twisted
as if life had left it and the rocks tossed it about sullenly
breaking me into consciousness. I entered it again reluctantly
and feeling its pain, I grasped my breast to know that I was still alive,
a nipple hardening insistent in the cold air, defiant, and belligerent.
An awakened seal, I felt my way through sleep, twirling my limbs in the seaweed,
a humble effort to cover my soft skin with this thin membrane.
Alas, my eyes still closed,I fell into myself as if a clam returned to her shell,
my body hastening to create a sheath of slick pearlescent splendor
to cover that which abused me with its brashness, the hard crystalline sand
of experience, again a gemstone sought after by those who would abuse me, violently.
I close my dreams until another day, a castaway on the island of inference,
an isolated spot, where I find solace, in contemplating another drought.
