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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Mistress of the Sea

By Julia Spano

It shone upon the tallest bow

The figurehead’s coquettish smile

Carved in the glint of goddess-eyes

To prowl the Southern Isles

 

The men arrived when light was hot

The sky still blistered blue

Some women spread out tapestries

Of bright landlover’s hues

 

They tied them ‘round the ropey necks

Of still-sweet sailor men

And begged, “Diana of the stars

Please bring them home again”.

 

Yet far above, the figurehead

Unleashed her languid laugh

“Oh, foolish churls, you silly girls

Know you nothing of men?

 

When any child of Zeus

Hears his sea mistress cry–

He cannot drown away my calls

To me, he must oblige

 

I wrap the winds about his waist

I parch his lips with salt

His soul fills deep with wanderlust

He begs me, ‘Keep me in the thrall…’

 

And then–

And only then!–

I snap his back with thunder’s whips

Rip his chest with seaman’s steel

Grind down his teeth to dealer’s meal

Slap him in waves to draw his blood

As blue and black as ocean’s flood

 

Splayed out upon the deck at dawn

His flesh-sack racks with sobs

But he cannot cry for anyone

Silence is the seaman’s job

 

Yet by next night, he begs again

For my smooth steady hand

‘Oh, sternest lady, drag me down

In wand’rer fortune’s palm!’

 

What can womankind provide him

When his heart belongs to me?

No man can remain on sand

In domesticity

When a wanderer’s loved to madness

By his mistress of the sea.”

 

 

Julia Spano is from Hillsborough, New Jersey. She is a member of the Writer’s Circle at her school, and is joining the school newspaper next year. She enjoys writing, playing the guitar and writing poems about ancient mariners. This is her first publication.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Ten

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