I strip myself bare,

veins of fishing line translucence, filleted and dye lit

bioluminescence in atmospheric depths

I am aswim, in night draped gossamer fog revelations

the sand silkens in a tempest fever break,

filtering between my toes in guitar slide—steel smooth notes

cloud-scatter fractures let leak the moonlight,

plunging below solid lines to a state of fragments—mosaic chaos of beauty

I become a silhouette of gilded pulse points resurrected,

ever-morphing surf shadows of needle lace finery,

gravitating with breezes toward dune undulation,

sea mist of pheromone notes in cobalt laze.

You,

navigating me from a silent thunderhead,

following the curves of my body, sea grass bend and sway, with eyes of sea ledge agility

Moon-flint frangipani, blooming bonfire glow from my back,

petals open echoes, with the faint scent of my heart quickening 

My incoherent tongue speaks a language restless with your approach,

flustered thoughts confuse my body,

forgetting how to breathe, with the weight of you upon me

wind through tattered sails of ghost ships in haunt

with dusted arms of gilded age, spinning ends to tales all about us

My immortal sense finds life in flesh.

We were prophecy,

in driftwood bones,

Flawless

you

and the sea that surges

within me.

E.A. O'Connell (December 2014)