The Siren in the Cenote by Lisa M. Bradley
A gentle distortion draws me:
my voice, but deeper, a register
I recognize from wistful dreams.
As I sleepwalk the stone basin,
an elf owl yips, rousing me.
I glance back to the ridge where
friends wreath the campfire.
Exhausted by exile, my chosen tribe
sleeps dreamless as the night is moonless.
None misses me yet, so I spiral down
to search out my other voice.
Deep in want, I’m engulfed,
unaware I’ve entered the earth’s maw
until Death titters to itself
in bird and bat and lizard bone
snapped underfoot. Ahead
I sense a void but still I walk
the narrowing corridor, my elbows
scraping the earth’s craggy throat
and I wonder, When did I cover my ears?
Perhaps some counter-spell unwinds inside me,
for, fear remembered, I crouch to crawl
to the cenote’s oily-mirror edge.
I stare into the eye of the stone
eager to greet my siren self—surely taller,
broader-shouldered to shelter our deeper voice.
Instead, glaring back is the girl I almost forgot:
Limp-braided. Round-chested. Survivor.
She is the vessel of my dream.
To drown her is to doom him.
Both are equally Me.
I recoil from the cenote’s edge.
The hungry ghost churns my reflection,
raging but powerless to force sacrifice
from mere disappointment, not despair.
I flee the ravening dark, running
toward night, firelight, friends.
Up and out, I emerge
knowing the moon is not missing,
merely waiting.
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