Myrlin A. Hermes

Myrlin A. Hermes is the author of the novels Careful What You Wish For and The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet. She is a graduate of Reed College and the University of London (Royal Holloway) and lives in Portland, Oregon. http://www.MyrlinHermes.com

Siren Song

Go ahead, lash yourself
to the mast if you like.
It won’t do any good.
It’s not the Siren that’s the danger to you,
it’s the song,
and I’m already stuck inside your head.

Curled up here in my corner, still
collecting, with the dust.
Idly flipping through you
like a bored genie in a bottle,
the last lonely demon left inside Pandora’s box.

Piece by piece,
I am putting you together:
my mouse brain, samurai crab,
I will stroke your belly
until you show your human face,
crack your carapace, pick the locks
on all your dirty little secrets,
and polish them until they shine like pearls.

Even this moment, as these very words
surf in on electromagnetic waves,
tickle your optic nerve, draw
constellations in between your neurons:
Here I am! Snuck once again
inside you.

There are hooks at both ends of this line;
and the one that got away
Never got away.

I’m never going
to lay a finger on you.
I’m not going
to need to.