I WOKE WITH SALT ON MY LIPS

I fell into the ocean,
and sank for one hundred years.

Beneath the toss and turn
of sleepless waves
Poseidon cradled me,
riptides and soft skin 
And told me not to cry.

“Sleep,”
he sighed, in a hushed, blood rush whisper.
And then the nymphs are tracing the curve of my spine
and as my lids flutter shut I feel
urchins on my chest,
anemones sprouting between my toes.

I am too afraid to ask if I am drowning.

I woke with salt on my lips,
in a phantom’s arms,
in a stranger’s house,
and felt the sea breeze in the breath on my neck,
and tasted the ocean when we kissed.

Isla Jeffery