April!poem and other concerns

Happy April 1st, everyone! I could start this with lots of almost-convincing lies about my life in the circus and surprising new ability to read minds or something like that, but I will desist. I did get to have a lovely job interview last night for summer camp in which we had to do a skit... as surfer dudes. Duuuuuuude. It is April, which means that it is National Poetry Month (otherwise known as "Flyakate will attempt to post poem everyday and probably forget after the first three days") so I have a poem that I first found when writing 'Til Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown for mcshep_match, which I also thought was an extremely successful story (modest much, I know).

Because it is April (which is almost like November) there is the Script Frenzy run by those awesome NaNoWriMo people. The challenge is to write 100 script pages for that hot new tv show/movie/play that you've had rumbling around in your head. With much of my creative non-fanfic brain caught up in the awesomeness of isurrendered, I think I might give it a shot to write some historical crime-solving in 1871 (otherwise known as an episode or so of The Diogenes Boys) which will be lots of fun. 100 pages in 30 days isn't so bad; especially when the spacing of a screenplay for a tv show is so extensive. We'll see how it goes.

Finally, here is the promised poem:



The Otter Woman by Mary O'Malley

He stood and watched her from the shadows
And moved to steal her tears scattered on the river-bank.
Now he could take his time.
He smoked.

She was all warm animal following the river,
Trying her new skin like a glove.
He trailed her, magnetised by the power to transform
The occasional bliss on her face, her awakened body.
Once or twice she saw him.
Her instincts were trusting on land.
They smiled.
This took the whole summer.

He took her by a lake in autumn,
A sliced half moon and every star out.
The plough ready to bite the earth.

She left him on a street corner
With no choice and no glance back, spring and a bomber's moon.
In between their loosed demons
Played havoc in the town.

2

He pinned her to the ground, his element.
This was not what she came for
But what she got.
Soon the nap of her skin rose only for him.
It was too late to turn back.
She grew heavy out of water.

Indifferent to all but the old glory
He never asked why she always walked
By the shore, what she craved,
Why she never cried when every wave
Crescendoed like an orchestra of bones.

She stood again on the low bridge
The night of the full moon.
One sweet, deep breath and she slipped in
Where the river fills the sea.
She saw him clearly in the street light - his puzzlement.
Rid of him she let out
One low, strange cry for her human sacrifice,
For the death of love,
For the treacherous undertow of the tribe,
And dived, less marvellous forever in her element.