Deborah L. Davitt
Red Blood, Dark Water
At the mere’s bank I stood, casting red rose petals
into its night-dark waves; overhead, the moon
hung in the sky, perfect, solitary—
standing where white and black and red all met.
In the village, my family had made
noise about how it was past time for me
to wed—
but there was no name I whispered
into the night, no hand I longed to hold,
no eyes I yearned to meet.
Instead, they’d betrothed
me to the landlord’s son,
much against my liking.
“I want nothing, I want no one,” I said,
throwing petals into the mere,
my fingers bleeding
from the roses’ thorns—
of such little things
sacrifices are made,
and gods awakened.
From out of the dark water,
a white horse rose,
his skin sheened with scales,
though his mane was long,
then in a shimmer, he shifted his form,
and asked in a man’s voice
what it was I desired.
I couldn’t meet his eyes at first—
glowing green as tarn water
caught in a vial held to the sun,
his teeth white and sharp and hooked
as those of any gar—
my breath caught in my throat,
as my fingers clenched on the thorns,
blood still dripping
into the darkened mere
—white moon, white horse,
red blood, dark water—
“Forgive me,” I said, for I knew
both who and what he was,
“I didn’t mean to summon you,
and am not here to bridle you,
to tame you or to ride you.”
I risked a glance as he laughed,
perhaps at the thought that I would dare,
perhaps at the words I’d chosen,
and heat rose in my face
as my eyes drifted down,
for in his mortal form
he wore no more clothes
than the sleek-scaled horse
he’d been when he rose
from the water, the dark water.
—white moon, white horse,
red blood, dark water—
“You’ll not wrap this maiden fall of hair
around me,” he asked, “not use it
to chain or bind me? You are not here
to ride me till I’m compelled
to do your bidding, grant your wishes,
or make your fields more fertile?”
Scorn perhaps, and skepticism,
but still my flush grew,
as my thoughts grew hardly maidenly,
and he raised his sleek-wet hand
to touch a lock of my hair.
“Then what, pray tell, do you desire?”
I raised my eyes, my tongue grown numb.
“Make me like you,” I dared to ask.
“Make me strong and proud and free,
clean and true in shape and form.
Make me accountable to nothing
and no one, except for sun and moon.”
His fingers tightened on my hair.
“Such a boon has a price.
Sacrificing everything you are
for what you could be.
Giving up your sweet mortality
for a life you could find
an endless misery.”
His touch wasn’t cold,
or if it was, it was so chill it burned.
“Take me,” I whispered, “make me.”
Our lips met, and I burned with cold,
skin stretched as my bones slid,
churned. I might have screamed,
but the agony was also ecstasy—
we knitted our bodies together,
and I craved more and more of him,
aching, piercing touch,
as his power flowed through,
playing with all my deepest parts,
my blood flowing through the waters
of his home,
moonlight staining me
down into my entrails
and when I thought I’d died,
I awoke in the dark waters,
Feeling my blood move through them,
because I was them, and they were me,
luxuriated in the touch of my waves on the shore,
the kiss of earth along my flanks.
And he was still there,
with me, in me,
curling within my belly,
as much a part of me,
as I was of the waters.
Beneath the pale moon.
I watched my hands form hooves,
stretched sinuous muscles
I’d never known I had,
and we thundered out upon the mere,
upon ourselves,
atop waves like glass,
mare to his stallion,
as he was stallion to my mare.
_______________
Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her award-winning poetry and prose has appeared in over seventy journals, including F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, and Lightspeed. For more about her work, including her Elgin-placing poetry collections, Bounded by Eternity and From Voyages Unreturning, see deborahldavitt.com. She also has a new poetry chapbook out in 2024 (Xenoforming), as well as a TTRPG and novel out this year: Mists & Memory and In Memory’s Shadow.
Author’s Notes and Backstory: I have been fascinated by kelpies since reading of keplian in the works of Andre Norton as a child. I wrote this poem in 2019, for a specific magazine that has since quietly slipped under the publishing waters, as, sadly, so many do. The premise of the magazine was “literary fantasy erotica—keep it tasteful.” And for me, erotic writing has to have emotion, or it’s just Tab A Slot B Ikea manuals, really. I like to think that in this poem, I got the emotions right. While it’s free verse, I still used little literary tricks like the repeating chant of “red blood, dark water” like a musical bridge to keep this long poem unified. And at the very end, I threw in a chiasmus, an x-shaped structure in which things reverse position and yet still make sense. Because I like symmetry!
Editor’s Comments and Image Citations: Microsoft Designer image generator with the prompt: “a surreal crystal-white horse materializing out of the surf under moonlight to meet a selkie.”