Ondine

At supper time an ondine’s narrow feet

made dark tracks on the hearth.

Like the heart of a yellow fruit was the fire’s heat,

but they rubbed together quite blue with the cold.

The sandy hem of her skirt dripped on the floor.

She sat there with a silvered cedar knot

for a low stool; and I sat opposite,

my lips and eyelids hot

in the heat of the fire. Piling on dry bark,

seeing that no steam went up from her dark dress,

I felt uneasiness

as though firm sand had shifted under my feet

in the wash of a wave.

I brought her soup from the stove and she would not eat,

but sat there crying her cold tears,

her blue lips quivering with cold and grief.

She blamed me for a thief,

saying that I had burned a piece of wood

the tide washed up. And I said, No,

the tide had washed it out again; and even so,

a piece of sodden wood was not so rare

as polished agate stones or ambergris.

She stood and wrung her hair

so that the water made a sudden splash

on the round rug by the door. I saw her go

across the little footbridge to the beach.

After, I threw the knot on the hot coals.

It fell apart and burned with a white flash,

a crackling roar in the chimney and dark smoke.

I beat it out with a poker

in the soft ash.

Now I am frightened on the shore at night,

and all the phosphorescent swells that rise

come towards me with the threat of her dark eyes

with a cold firelight in them;

and crooked driftwood writhes

in dry sand when I pass.

Should she return and bring her sisters with her,

the withdrawing tide

would leave a long pool in my bed.

There would be nothing more of me this side

the melting foamline of the latest wave.