Surface - skim a slippery satin sheet
She floats carelessly like cocktails and dreams
Sunrise ignites silhouette like silver screen
Platinum tendrils silken hair
Waving sea tide breeze

She gulps ocean of air above
Sky I cannot breathe.
First, hid in seagrass mound
Shyly tease tentacle weave
Sun kissed cheek, her camouflage freckles
Is she petrified of me?

Summer blazed -
Daily she bathed in my backyard
Shed outer wet black sleeve
I ventured brave, emboldened
Flashed my beak
Her smiling string of pearls shone blindingly

Pounding shudder my three hearts bleed.
Those Jellyfish, anemone - 
From then, as if she came for me
Twice - I dared touch 
Slender arm, tender leg, she flinched
At first, then flashed those pearls again 

Sink in her skin, my eyes, tongue, and teeth
Cold shiver tipple, no warmth within to give
High on senses, mind to read; 
the stories legged ones believe!

Stinkhorn fungi -
Foul fly infestation named after me!
Cephalopod archive pickled in glass jars
Ancestral remains on display – how sick!
Burnt offerings of cousin squid on stick
Repulsively charcoaled on Chinese New Year

Does she mock or salivate for salt n peppered
Panko crumbed, cream of me?
Dream of a Fisherwoman’s wife – I cannot be.
Till winter sky turned silver, grey, black as my ink.
Monster I am, how could I think?

Tentacles soaked in feelings real, I knew!
Passion consumed hunger grew
I ventured miles missed kiss of skin to shake
Disembodied wrath of
Crustaceans in my wake
I was ripped - bold ocean deep 
Stealth stowaway aboard any passing ship

Acrobatic drift nets climbed
Like an addict – not the fish
Vessels of Sea woman 
None taste like her one bit

I cannot win – terror fathoms deep
A reputation earned. I am BEAST!
KRAKEN THEY referred….

Storms brewed to the East
Bolts of light spiral, sun runs to hide 
Shape of terror like mine in the sky
Cyclone - named woman – why?
Swallowed her village in one week

Guilty, gloating at rising sea tide
Take me to her door? 
Lap at her shores I long to 
Reside with Sea woman writhe on her floor

Release the Kraken - gin, maps, mariner legend
Passion spawned the beast into being
Simply spurned by one adored.