sirenia

[cy-re-nee-ah] n.  the sirens, half bird and half woman, were “dangerous” maidens, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their isle

sooner or later
most of us will be forced to live a double life,
hide what was once meaningful
and reveal what has now become meaningless,
but which half note should i sing about,
which half will liberate and make me whole?

                                plummeting	
							    silence			
			        from the sky					
							    and then			
				my pilot half					
							    shrieks	
				feathers	
							    suffocating
				through clouds
  						            obstructed		
				before                   
                                                            gills				
				crashing		
                                                            my seafarer half		
				into rocks			
							    pulled                 
                                below
                                                            forever.

Michele Evans, a fifth-generation Washingtonian (D.C.), is a writer, high school English teacher, and adviser for her school’s literary magazine, Unbound. Despite always wearing the color black, she exhibits a certain fondness for blueberries, blue hydrangeas, blues musicians, and Blue Mountain coffee. This 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the ASP Bulletin poetry contest has been published in Artemis, Maryland Literary Review, Sky Island Journal, The Write Launch, and elsewhere. purl, her debut collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. You can find her at awordsmithie.com or @awordsmithie on Instagram.

Image: Sirens of TI by Rojer under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license via Wikimedia Commons.