Immersion

He sleeps

she cracks his head wide open

just like age-dried wood

and makes his dreams ooze through

(impetuously liquid)

and yield themselves to the bigger stream

scarring towards the ocean

And he already feels their future

hanging like a past tense

ebbing through

ebbing through

wetting his desire

rusting his brain with the scour of love

And now

rippling through those dreams

the lorelei-slave song going in deep

barbing his innocence

netting him static

overtaking him

with love-slashed hook-bites

He is poised above the depths

poised off-shore

poised between drowning and rescue

immersion-poised in the helplessness

that she has dropped him into

His hair is water

skin-rash water

body-itch water

all of him water

(all his thoughts gone liquid

in the pressure of incursion)

And something strikes, submerging him

and sprawls him grabbing for a handhold:

grabbed under, grabbed under,

lashed by the wrenching straps of water

shredded by his panicked thrashings;

rescue ropes from unknown hands

worm-slither in his space

but he turns aside, ignores them

and the current tugs him sideways

and the current shoves him over,

heel-heads him to a panic-trip

and makes him breathe the brackish

and the emptiness speaks through him

and the only words transmitted

are "true love" and "certain capture"

and every strangling rescue rope

comes closing in again

but now each one goes snarling,

embedded with her teeth

And he puckers himself towards her

and attempts to greet her pain

and embrace his warranted punishment

as his lips reach out

red-fleck the swirling brine

whilst he is towed right under

He hinges his hands

repels the bloodied water

but still sees nothing

and gives it up

then feels the juices

sinking clearly, sinking slowly

right down through his eyes

And love drenches him

love bubbles through his jail-bars

so now he knows she has him

poised within his failure

poised within surrender

And she gaffs the love-cells of his brain

pulls him through to where she lies

and he drowns through sleep

and pushes awake

pushes aside the pillow

uncovers his sweating head

opens his dripping eyes

and sees her sleeping smile.