Siren and Cephalopod

(After reading Philip Larkin's Mythical Introduction)

an aria spray caresses the vessel's blouse bosom suffused with song swelling, taut and drenched propelling the mast impelling ship and sailor toward the ravishing bird her succulent word: come hither, seaman, bowsprit and spar to a tender haven kiss the salty hair of a windblown raven rhythmic chords guide to a craggy strand the swaying cords lure to a hidden shoal a perilous harbor a hydraulic troll a tentacled womb cloaked in seabed sand ⋮ a wanting depth-sound the betrayal of man the desperate prayers the rope-torn hands the fragmented hull the shipwrecked seafarer shivers in cephalopod lair the predatory mollusk's testicular hood intelligent leer eight-armed cervix and parrot-like beak a ravenous thrust a singular shriek ribbons of arterial blood wrap the sirenopus feast roll in the hymenal ocean lap the shoreline's rosy crust and sea dog's shredded husk ⋮ the desiccated severed skull has for years been mounted near the brackish inlet it still appears surprised at first love, transfixed with a maiden's wide eyes