I ask for a word, and she gives me a murky sea. Greener than blue, paint on our hands is wet, wet, wet, and I don’t know what to do with a throat full of algae. Bioluminescent rip-tide of waves swelling at ebbing feet as she dances the shores near an opalescent midnight.

I drowned in my last life; kelp followed me to this one—perhaps a siren is only so if they love water more than life. I don’t know what to do on this craggy raft. We’re lost, I finally say, looking onto still waters. She looks at the moon like it were an emerald before saying, Nice night for it.

I ask for a word, and she gives me a beast, clawing lines against my new mouth. My first father wasn’t mine, she says turning inside out to accommodate the teeth. This isn’t what I meant; fur falls from my lips as I speak. We are not hunters anymore—time gave us back the soft skin. Then you should be more specific, she says, holding onto the crust as the room shifts like clockwork. Our jaws are stained in the fading hour. A ground too old to be ours shakes; we are alone.