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THE NAUTILUS

Aimless on this shore I wandered
Foot to the carved sands of time
While metered breath I softly squandered
On cold laments in pointless rhyme

Behind each heel, a dimpled lake
Paid homage to my fleeing form
A trail of ghostly stars my wake
On rippled mirrors, their shadows borne

And ‘round my ankles hissed the sea
Its serpent tongue of foamy white
Still thirsting for a taste of me
And raged at boundaries in the night

Between the waves and windswept coils
A nestled pool of depthless dark
Lay silent while the ocean boiled
A gleaming shell its only mark

The pearly surface snared my eye
A mermaid’s trinket cast ashore
It crooned to me alluring lies
And siren-songs of ancient lore

The ocean held my heart in step
An ebony wave for every beat
While scaly strands of nightmare leaped
And dashed about my planted feet

So for what purpose did I bend
To touch my enigmatic prize?
What magic tendrils did it wend
Through pulsing veins, to night-lit eyes?

I knelt, and purchase scrabbled for
Upon the moon of watery sky
Which—while I groped on murky shore—
Stared up at me, unblinking eye

I caught it, clutched it, held it close
Its snake-skin surface soothed my touch
How others in my place would boast
To hold a treasure fair as such!

I lifted it above the spray
A nautilus of perfect stars
Celestial signs around it splayed:
Cancer, Venus, Libra, Mars

I heard it whisper, soft to me,
“I know, I know that which you yearn—
But wishes are not granted free
In payment, match the jewel you earn.”

My faltering knees allowed me down
And splashed in shallow, gasping surf
I muttered madness at the ground
And swore I’d pay its total worth

It sputtered slightly, quelled its light
I swear I heard it chuckle then
As it grew black as veil of night
And drew me close to it again

“Come,” it called, and come I did
Broke trail into the pounding waves
My muscles bound by what it bid
It steered me through its sloshing caves

I saw the cliffs of ocean rise
And through my mind there flickered doubt
But I was choked with salt and storm
And crushed beneath, my breath run out

So slow into the depths I fell
Drowned by the carved seas of time
While final breath I softly quelled
On cold laments, in pointless rhyme
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