Otter's Cry Poem by Anthony Dalby

Cocooned in inky blackness
frost biting the brittle shell of the boat

my mind fingers its way through the sleeping stillness
to where you lie
woodsmoke drifts across the moonlight
and runs through your hair

crack!

awake sharp as needled teeth a scream in the night
dreams dispersed by the otter's cry....

my mind says otter
my heart says the cry of she who waits
my mad banshee who would devour me
a yellow spear of sound

of wild jewel eye who speaks
and the silent mewl of young and the fip flap flipper
of the silver stretch of fish

of holts hidden safe within the bowels of our mind
spun with golden threads of light
tail round haunch round claw round tooth round dream
nip and chase to join in the velvet darkness
with the oh my lovely moistness

I wrap my haunches round you and slide back to slumber
my silver seed seeping in your intimacies