Seahorse Interlude

My friend Michelle posted a photo on FaceBook of a seahorses at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It made me think of a seahorse poem I wrote a long time ago -- right at the beginning of my own personal poetry renaissance-- after a prolonged dry spell, no poems. Here it is, for Michelle and any one else who likes seahorses -- I wrote this in 1997. I wrote several version of it over the next 3 or so years, and I would write it differently now. I remember I wrote it during a workshop at UCSC -- and one of the other participants said it was indecent -- too much sex.



Seahorses

My lover wants me like the sea
He lays me down in fields of seahorses, blue and green

In our secret ocean the white fish die
and spill their eggs like gold coins

His singing anchors me to this
underwater world, I can drink
the whole sea full of salt

Anemones like hungry children
reach up for us in their pale
friendly way

luring us down
into the dream
down into
his arms

His brave brown ship carries me
away rocking on scarlet wind,
endless, and liquid, and true

I don’t care for anything here
except that he plays--

play yourself like the dark waves

play me like the foam on the storm--