PROSE POETRY
EILEEN MALONE
HALF SIREN
She appears to be another crippled, homeless, old woman, one who squats nightly in the abandoned shack that wobbles on brutal cliffs that rise from the sea. Each evening she sits at the window talking to the jawbone of the moon that rises, throws down a dance on the blue-black ice-cold ocean with a twist and turn that leaps like rippling silver-shiver fish from water, as she sips her daily ration of rum which she mixes with water that still runs from the tap. Even on unlit moonless nights she sits and listens to the rush of wind and sea that promises only rupture and expulsion into the waters she believes she once swam through to rest on its rocks, and sing siren songs. Knows she’s half siren already, hobbling on crutches from wheelchair to bathtub, where she sprinkles salt and squeezes water from sponges on mermaid scales that she believes are forming on her magically manifesting emerging tail. Nightly she readies to enter swimmingly, the water that approaches closer and closer in its desire to once again absorb her. She patiently watches an agitated ocean open its mouth to bare white-capped teeth grinding their molars on the breakers. She feels the slow-moving power grind away at the beach below, chew at the bank of land that holds her temporarily on its ridge. Her mind prepares for her body’s death as she invites nature's demolition to come for her spirit, and when ready, bring her home.
Eileen Malone is widely published. Her writing awards for her poetry and stories include four nominations for Pushcart prizes. Collections published: Letters with Taloned Claws (Poets Corner Press, Sacramento), I Should Have Given Them Water (Ragged Sky Press, Princeton), It Could Be Me, Although Unsure (by Kelsay Books, Aldrich Press).
