The Nereid: Thetis

William F. DeVault

She rose from the water to taunt me, to haunt me. 

More beautiful than I had remembered. 

The prickly, sickly smell of the low tide 

pricked my pride and I was castaway 

and back 

to stack all my memories like coins 

wagered in a strange game of time lost. 

 

The cost incalculable. 

 

So here I am, again, the green felt sand 

like a belt around the girth of waters 

where play the daughters of man 

brushing the crushing waves 

that echo into themselves 

words whispered in times forgotten. 

But I hear when I draw near as I dare. 

 

I am home. I am home. 

 

The bright horizon draws down the curtain 

to invite the stars to dance 

and stare at me, my hair caught 

in a hot, final gout of ions 

torn from the desert to follow the sun. 

As I did, until it hid from me, behind the sea 

to sneak up on me later, from behind. 

 

The well-traveled breeze. 

 

The bark of waves on sand. The hand of God 

in every inarticulate clearing of the throat 

of the Charybdis. This is where we begin and end, 

friend and assassin. Lover and liar, synonymous 

in the strange true tongue of prophets 

who could only marvel at what I already know: 

I will lay awake tonight and listen 

to my lover call my name. 

 

Over and over and over and over.

 

 

 

 

http://www.williamfdevault.com/


Main Location:

Santa Barbara, CA, USA