Sedna

Terror
You walk in, out, in, out.

I walk around.

I face and face nothing.

Not myself.
Not even.

You raise your voice.
I lower mine.

We make spaces that the other fills. Submission. Dominance.
Silence.
Roaring.
Familiar spaces. The sacrificial virgins to the old gods.

Too many times now, my right arm, my last two fingers, some ancestor keeps me here.
At war.
At war.

I ask to speak
I speak without permission.

I live
I live.
I dance without you.

Older,
I walk backwards in time. I become a whale, a mermaid.
A cup bearer.

Drink the elixir, please, true lover, see inside me.
Read between my eyes.

I sing.
I sing ancient songs for silent times.
I ask that the birds echo back
And the bats
Yet all I hear is the keening of orcas
And the hollow crack and echo of ice on water.

Since the time
I was cast out under the cloudy thunder
Fled a nest fearful
I reached out for you
Only to meet your indifferent blade
My fingers severed from the palms
One whole hand from wrist

Father father, why did you choose this?
You watch me sink and sink
into the dark throat of the ravenous
tide
little me
under an ocean that swallows the sky.

In the soothing of my scarred limbs,
my phantom will
No man can I trust till they can bear witness
Still
I know you took the fingers from me
So there would be nothing I could point
should I dare to surface.