The Land Of Froth Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

He sought the tide,
with its fine foam,
the ripples in the night
and swam, letting the flow
wash into his insides,
his tail, a whipping boy,
though willing in the dive
into the murky waters of
a secret place, inhabited by
only one, the spirit of
the Cantadora of the flesh,
she'd be there, staying in
suspension as a floating fleece,
all bones, and only searching still
for what she called a drum,
a beating one it was, he'd fill
the flesh in, with his trembling hands,
and breathe his fiery breath into
and over the outside of her sticks of bleach,
she'd been once saved from the wild sea,
the powers of renewal and of waves,
by man, a fisherman in his small boat,
hand carved and seasoned in the sun,
he'd hooked her in his line and she had held
with bony fingers, tight, until they hit
the bank and he had run, still clasping
his huge fishing rod, with its entangled line,
she'd followed due to simple laws of Physics,
yet he'd been touched by panic, to his heart.
Inside the home, a frigid igloo though it was,
he'd made a fire just to get away from her,
and from his fears, he'd go to sleep he said,
inside the fur of white, a polar bear's great gift,
and when the flames died down he listened to her song,
as he awoke again, and then he asked if she would come
to keep him company, inside the fur, perhaps she was
as cold as he had been, inspite of lacking flesh
and skin and any true inside, and so she went,
he placed his arm around her cage of twelve white ribs,
she tangled both her femurs and the tibias, fibulas
with urgency into his hairy legs, and then he felt the stir,
and soon they hummed their song inside their house of snow.
She reached then, deep inside his chest and pulled,
with sudden ease his heart came out, leaving behind
a single dropp of blood, which she picked up with stony teeth,
she said his drum would be for them, would heal them both
and grow the flesh that she had lost out in the sea.
And so it came to be, they sang while holding tight to
what she called a drum, it beat for them and warmed his flesh,
she grew, all within minutes, in the dark, and filled her bones,
the cavities of hope and when she pressed her virgin loins
into his hairy thighs there was a song that came from the inside,
inside the heart, his heart which they put back into his chest,
and in the cold of it, the Dugong as he'd named it, ventured in,
he found the tide and it was high, for which he thanked the moon,
and in a while when they remained quite still, the music died.
But they could feel the beating drum inside the cave, it was a throb
and would become the pulse of their small world, the land of Froth.