He fell like rain on my scaled ribs;
weight of night, a canopying cove.
 
In past life I died a soulless abyss,
body withering on shallow corals –
 
pearls of decay foraging my tail;
glistening mist of sea – moon
 
light on an undetermined equinox.
His face emerges shadow-washed,
 
type of soul on which demons linger;
hard to touch / impossible to possess.
 
I have learnt to hatch infallible signs:
consume if eyes glow deep-set gold;
 
they are beauty of rare masculine
Venus. My tail has come of age –
 
of luring. His jaws: toiled plateaus;
thirst drying oceans back into seas –
 
Moon-endowed canvassed hunter,
calves ripping aside tides to dust,
 
his core secure within his shell,
heart encaged: forbidden covenant.
 
I learn to hunt silver eyes; their souls
tied to vanity. One glance of my velvet
 
gaze makes moons throb inside
their ecliptic trails, his feral sway
 
is still easy to elude. He treads my lone
cove, eyes curious curls of heat, platinum
 
sheen under moon’s reflective caress;
trebles of my tail’s shimmer arresting
 
him nearer, weight of night peaking.
In past life I was an ocean of riptide –
 
my body islet of water-diamonds,
ire burgeoning void of our realm.
 
His soul is easy to consume –
to make him beseech – my siren
 
songs shiver on lips of oceans,
and make them live to remember
 
here is where souls never leave,
and this is how my tail transforms –
 
Artwork by: Louis Michel Eilshemius