Bouys

by Therese Piecyznski

The buoys dip and preen
like mermaids plying their long tresses.
In a crescent they bob patiently,
the cold water licking at their bronze skin.

Then, in their center, a great buoy
rises in a gush of water:
Poseidon, weed-encrusted, rust-colored,
hoists his barnacled bell.

The mermaids sway as if enchanted,
rising and falling, rising and falling.
From the beach I hear the slap
against brine and black;

expect the great buoy’s leg to lift
above the waves and take the shore.
I wait to stand face to face
with something better than I can imagine….

But he will not reveal himself to me,
will not rise, green-robed and fantastic,
coral-crowned, for my scrutiny.
I stand on the edge:

if he comes not to me, then should I to him?
If my foot touched the retreating sea,
would he strip me of my boredom?
Would he show a world more full than can be?

I watch him grow ponderous, bound to moors;
knowing, as I turn, that it is just like me
to want humans from beyond the stars
…and lovers from beneath the sea.

--TP
(c)2000, Therese Pieczynski

Therese Pieczynski is a Rochester, New York-based poet, writer and artist whose poems have appeared in several poetry journals, and whose fiction has appeared in Asimov's. She is poetry editor of Terra Incognita magazine and writes book reviews for Nova Express.