top of page
window-sea-pic-for-website.jpg
Search
Writer's pictureHannah Hinsch

Ino: A Poem

Updated: Jun 17, 2020



published in Lingua journal


I sit at his ship-helm and trace sea-foam with my veil’s edge— just as easily, I can call the brine from drowning lungs and leave him gasping on distant gold sands. What to make of wine-soaked waves, those pithy offerings? I let them run between my fingers. The moment the arch of my foot touched water, I became sea-maiden, wife to none, who braids her hair with kelp ripped from Oceanus’s chilled halls, right from shore-bound nymphs. I string their amber beads and pink shells between my breasts and let them drink salt. Siren-led sailors cry my name— gull-voices— and I wrap their wrists with my salt-soaked scarf to pull them from the sea-wrack: Poseidon’s insolent foam he conjures just to see me move. Will I be his Amphitrite? Calm his waters with a song? Or do I sing to men instead? Waves bear me forth with cupped shell-hands, I their pearl; thus, I haunt your waters— guiding pirates and kings alike so that your man can return home, safe in his bed, still dreaming of my cold hands.


58 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page