Rosie & Djinn Poem by Amy Sutton

She steps aboard like she was always there,
And moves about me like some kind of dream.
The timbers creak and roll to take her weight,
And I have to relearn to find my feet
Among the river tides I know so well.
She dips her feet in, dangling off the bow;
The water flares to silver pewter sun.
Her hands caress the lazy rippled tide,
And she sings to the river in lost tongues
That blur my mind and fill the air with spices
From distant lands, cut with a sea-salt tang;
The river rolls and rushes like a sigh.

She smells of sun-drenched pools in summer time,
Of ozone and the hot exhale of steam.
A memory lingers, lost deep in her hair,
Of salt-crust sand and sea birds on the wind.
Her eyes are burning lilies on a lake.
She moves like fire in water, and she is
So beautiful sometimes it hurts to look,
And sometimes hurts to have to look away.
And god, she is so irresistibly...
Yes - Arrogant; she wears her vanity;
It hangs around her heavy like perfume;
I sway; In weakness, I could worship her.

In idle moments, with her naked legs
Around my waist, and, on the edge of sleep,
She talks, abstract, of treasures of the deep:
Of skulls with ruby eyes and gilded teeth,
Already half-forgotten as she speaks.
She says she can give me what I desire;
I smile and nuzzle her breasts and agree,
And we both lie in silence, wondering
How much I've chosen to misunderstand.
I fall into her like surf on the beach;
Her body rolls and rushes like the tide;
My mind becomes the sunlight on the waves.

I wake to find her talking in her sleep,
A language I don't know, but one I find
I understand, and I see murky deeps,
Seductive, full of lust and death and teeth;
I see freak storms, great chasms opening up
In once-calm water; wind-whipped waves that rent
And rip and tip and tear a boat apart,
Throwing the men to ravenous frothing waves.
The timbers groan in chorus to her cries;
She bucks and moans for salt-logged human flesh.
I hold her close until the dreams have passed,
And kiss her neck and gently stroke her hair.
I do not whisper in her ear to soothe her;
I cannot find the words that I should say.