Caenis

Can you hear me when I call?
If I sing out your name like the sea,
with a lyric rising just to fall,
will you finally come home to me?

If I sing out your name like the sea-
waves crashing on the slate-grey sand,
will you finally come home to me,
or must I submit to his demands?

Waves crashing on the slate, grey sand
slithering out across this bleak shore,
I must submit to other demands,
so do not speak of marriage anymore.

Slithering over this bleak shore
comes the wretched piscine king.
Do not speak of marriage anymore!
Though we never promised anything.

Oh, comes the wretched Piscean king
like a lyric rising, just to fall.
I know we never promised anything,
but can you hear me when I call?

This week's format is the pantoum, and it's so mindboggling to me I won't even try to explain it here.  I swear, every time we do one of these challenges, it's light-years harder than the last one.  The lovely runaway sentence. posted hers way ahead of me, as usual.  Go read it.  We'll be taking our format challenge over to the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads on alternating weeks, so keep your eyes peeled, and if you have an idea for next week's format, please let me know!  I would ask for a simpler one if I weren't such a masochist.   


Poor Caenis.  She called for help--in elegiac couplets, no less--but all she got was a quick sex-change.  Gods can be jerks.