Sirens Don't Sing Underwater

Shantell Powell

Like sleek seals, the sirens haul themselves to the cliff edge. Basking atop the crags, they preen and comb their hair. Only eagles and gods have a better view. While they sun, they watch for the flap of canvas, and if the wind is still and the water calm, they listen for the plash of oars.

‘Lo, there comes one now. A galleon with blazing white and red sails, like fat striped with blood. The sirens rear up upon their tails. They sway like serpents. They sing notes so pure the birds bow in shame, and the sailors come. Oh yes, they come. The sailors put up their oars. They crane their necks for a better look. And one by one with backs arched and arms outstretched, the sirens shoot down from Sirenum Scopuli, entering the water with nary a splash.

Silver-tongued and silver-skinned, they erupt from the surf clad in spume. Foam collects around them, rich with proteins released from the godhead of Zeus. It was from this spatter that Aphrodite arose, but these silver-scaled sirens have no need for the goddess of love. Never will they sojourn on Olympos. They flit between Scylla and Charybdis. They sing to Odysseus bound to his mast as he strains against the ropes, desperate to offer himself to them.

Like Dionysian dolphins, the nymphs thrash the water with their tails. They stand erect in the waves, beckoning with a curl of talon-tipped forefingers. The slit of their lips is glaucous with salt, mother-of-pearl tips their breasts, and loose tresses cling to torsos. Rainbows erupt in the spray. Song shimmers across the sea until it slides its way into the ears of a sailor. But not these sailors. Something is wrong. All these men are deaf, save Odysseus. 

He strains against his bonds until his veins rise like a tsunami. He pulls until his skin is as red and white as his sails. He pleads with his crew, but they will not set him free. 

The sirens circle the ship. They sing and they sigh. They lift up their hair to reveal long and elegant necks. They offer their breasts upon the platter of their palms, but it is all to no avail. These men do not join them. The crew will die in different ways. It has been fated. The galleon sails on.

The sirens return to their crag with empty bellies. Their starveling songs are ragesome, and the air is thick with the recriminating cries of gulls. The mermaids drag themselves back to the clifftop to watch for a better ship. 

It’s a long wait. Scylla and Charybdis are greedy. They devour most sailors, themselves. The sirens must subsist on flotsam. 

In faraway Ithaca, Odysseus slaughters suitors. The nymphs will do the same, because today, new ships are coming. 

Coming, coming, the galleys are coming, and this time the sailors hear. Ships drop anchor on the far side of the reef, beyond the crashing shore. Singing sirens surround the galleons. These seamen stand no chance. Lusty and drunk men dive into the wine-dark sea. In ecstasy, they kick their way down to Poseidon’s realm. It’s a rapture of the deep. It’s nymphomania. When the ships are empty, the mermaids swim down to join the sailors, circling in a shoal of shining scales and loose-floating hair. 

These men presume they will seduce sirens with sweet nothings, but their hubris only seasons the meat. They open their mouths and open their arms to embrace the nymphs.

Sirens don’t sing underwater. Their mouths open only to devour. In the swash, grinning mouths gape wider than a human’s ever could. Parted lips reveal double rows of black teeth sharper than shards of obsidian. The sirens’ familiars join the sparagmos: obedient sharks with atramentous eyes, rending, tearing, rolling, and gnashing in omophagic frenzy. 

The feast is over. Only the birds sing now. Galleon sails hang flaccid. Beneath the Mediterranean sun, water as pink as rosy-fingered dawn laps against the hulls of ghost ships.

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