No doubt some wit in ancient days
Seeing his lover’s silken hair
Swirling in the waves where she lay
Sun-pressed upon an azure sea
Thought how like the skeins of seaweed
Sweeping back and forth along the rocks
It looked, and later, enticed into her arms upon the sand
Smiled and said she’d drawn him to his doom.

No doubt a cynic seaman some time later,
Recipient of a Dear John letter from his lover,
Seeing fellows dashed upon the rocks,
Their bodies broken in the sea skeins
Rocking forwards backwards with the waves
Thought how his lover’s long hair had swept
Around his head, blinding him to her deceit,
And called those skeins the same:
False lovers enticing men unto their doom.

No doubt some storyteller drew the skeins
And gave them names – the Sirens:
Deceiving women lying naked on the rocks,
Calling, with caressing song, and
Drawing men long kept from love and its
Enticements, drawing them to danger,
Blinding eyes to rocks that break the
Strongest boats and shatter hearts that
Beat with greatest strength;
Ill-use where desire whelms brain and
Commonsense is blinded to its doom.