Nereus

Shapeshifter threw me a rope
and all I held was an umbilical dead end

                                    —bridge from nowhere.

Like wind-cleft dune breathes grains back into itself
self-catalytic creature / fragile phantom.

Like bolt from the blue from nowhere to nothing
electrical fluke / flicker of an overheated brain.

Still, stay is my plea
though I utter it thinly

sounding out the many names
of you

                                    —the many, many shapes.

Leave thickens the skin claylike, poreless
till craquelure chinks shatter the illusion

and you’re a mess: a sullen inconsolable mess.
Your old-man-of-the-sea stubborn disquiet

could rival the surest hands
even heroic

                                    —even watertight.

Rare one, is it against your will that you return?
Your truths are hard-won

reluctant oracles mirthlessly spelling Necessity
violent blood drawn from the stone—

Weary stone who would drag me to the bottom
of the sea:

tell me when is the time for mercy
and which of us should be the one

to give it?

Caroline Anjali Ritchie is an Australian-born, London-dwelling writer and researcher. She is currently completing a PhD on the poetry and art of William Blake. Her poetry explores the relationship between language, nature, and the human mind, often with an emphasis on mental health.