The souls in my garden sing:

At noon, when light cracks through
Sea-salt to the sandy beds

And again, when midnight
Spreads the sky with stars in
A radiance that we,
Deep-water dwellers,
Can only feel
Under our skin, scales.

They sing of what they
Once loved:

            Princes, their voices
            Deep and resonant as
            Graves,

            The sun, glorious and raw—
            Burning on
            Flesh made for depths
            And darkness.

And what they love now:

            Currents that cool them,
            And ask politely for dances,

            Eels with eyes like coals and
            Temperaments like dogs,

            Their own harmonies,
            Tentative, swelling,
            Broken, brilliant by turns.

 

(Editors’ Note: “What They Love Now” is read by Erika Ensign on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 51B.)

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© 2023 Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman