It’s a kind of steeplechase.
A deep black eye
awaits and the young step straight into it
– a ritual anointing. ‘Iodine!’
grandfather says. ‘ Prophylactic.’
Also, well-nigh indissoluble.
Locals sidestep it, and now and then
some furriner cracks a femur
or tibia.
Next, skin-rasping sea-blite
and dozens of pulks tiled with mud mosaic,
Byzantine streams in winding canyons,
the tumbledown bridge decorated
with badges of burned orange lichen.
What is comfortable on the saltmarsh?
A small pool clear as a cloud-window,
fringed with thrift – that’s where they’re hanging.
Half-in, half-out: just testing the water.
Copper and caramel, blonde, chestnut,
their long hair’s unleashed and interwoven
with green strings. Seaweed shoulder straps.
Green satin drapes over their lean limbs,
it slips between their fingertips.
To be mobbed
by mermaids, and favoured with a knob
of sea-lavender, mauve, almost musty.
Whimsical? Wistful? By no means.
These are apprentices, spellbound by boy bands
and Jessie J, up to their necks
in social networking. Two play the guitar,
unaware their combs are plectra.
One has grade VI (harp) with distinction,
another’s been to Copenhagen. Of course
they know mermaids and seal-women are magical,
and allow Sheila Disney with her moustache
and webbed feet (she taught them to swim)
may have been the last child of a seal-family.
As for them… Atta-who? Atargatis…
They shrug their tanned shoulders.
They’ve heard
they can raise storms but not how or why.
They’re not freighted with tales or harsh truths
and have yet to learn how their kind kidnapped
poor Hylas.
They paint their nails
viridian, and dream boys will fall for them,
but don’t mean to wound them or eat them alive,
only to swamp them in their unblinking pools.
They chant as they toss their tears,
but keep dropping them.
Tidal, that’s what they are,
lucent, already welling, waves-in-the-gathering.
Saltwaters make and pull around them,
chime and chuckle, and engage with them.