The Seven

I met a woman once,
as I crossed the world alone,
who swore to all who'd listen
she had the ocean in her bones.

She said beneath her paper skin,
her blood and the sea collide
and it tugs at all her limbs
like the pulling of the tide.

She wore a string of seashells,
shattered around her throat,
and her hands were dripping sand
as, with her voice, she wrote

a tale of sailing shadows
on summer nights by light of star,
and a map with which she and
her lover once had traveled far.

She told of sirens singing
from rocky tombs so long ago,
whispered of the man who'd left
when high tides pulled back low,

and how she'd captured seven secrets
in her hands and bones and chest,
before she closed her eyes and told me
even oceans need their rest.

So I watched her sail away again,
one seashell in my hand,
and wondered if she'd ever find
her mind on solid land.