Becoming the Sea

by Alexandra Seidel

When she fell

the sea washed all the salt from her hair

and drained the spices from her body.

Her limbs were long and they looked lost

as the waves moved them, up and down,

but they did not look broken;

it was her heart alone that was in shambles

The truth is

that she did not fall.

She was pushed

not with hands, not with a temper lost

but with a glance alone

and eyes filled to their brims with a variation on love

like she was once filled with salt and spices.

Her name was on his lips

as she lost the solid ground beneath her feet,

his hands could almost feel her warmth,

his mouth was wet with her remembered taste,

salt and spice…

He sang her name like grains of salt dissolving

or like spices burned then boiled, her name

chimed in increments of song: 'Eu-ry-di-ce…'

It is known what happened to the minstrel,

how he was doomed to perish in ecstasy

but the tale has little words for her, knows not

how her hair was washed to brine, how

her breath pooled as foam into the waves

and how her eyes dyed all the seas in their fashion,

made them deep and far and wide,

untamable by nature

This is the failing of the storytellers,

their lost tales;

Eurydice…

she is still in the sea, is in the water:

when you look out upon the raging torrents

you can see what was once her body,

waves melting to curves melting to horizon;

a lyre lying broken and freed from its strings,

a lyre now holding a different note.