Larissa Shmailo

Winedark Sea

In the east, in the eastern rising lands, a tide, 
westering, earthdrawn, rising, the morning sun 
bloodied in its wake. She drags, pulls, shifts, 
hauls, trascines her hydraulic load. Tides born of 
tides, moondrawn, myriadheaded, within her, 
within her blood, oinopa ponton: the  winedark 
sea. A wet sign calls her hour, bids the earth-
shaken fallen rise, bids the wet-dirt wounded rise, 
bids the blooddimmed peoples rise, as she 
radiates out, out, out, forever from her bed. The 
wet sign calls her hour, bids all to rise from 
childbed, bridebed, deathbed, rise. He comes, the 
pale salt vampire, in clouds and tears, and claws,
battle-led, draws, battle-red, mouth-to-mouth, 
limb-to-limb, skin-to-skin. There. Here.

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