Cammy Thomas

Siren

The dead are all around,
young men mostly,
not even ones I'd want.
I've seen too much of stupid youth.  

We sing but always the same song,
as if we had no choice—
the churning sea makes rhythms
too deep to shift.  

And we are not friends.
We sang the brother
of one of us to death,
and even she keeps singing,

though now she always turns
toward where he washed ashore.  
We don't breathe, but
still we smell the dead,

hope ships won't come,
even as our voices pull them in.
I hear the booms and cries
when their hulls are crushed.