By Eleanor Luke
The pearl fisherman watches me appear in a silver chariot pulled by two winged steeds. I wear no veil, my face exposed for all to see. He gazes at me, drinking in my spurious light.
I urge him to abandon but he takes no heed, drunk on the legend that describes the teardrop I shed after battling Typhon. It rests on the seabed now, a pearl of untold magnitude, too heavy for any mortal to lift.
He dives to his watery grave.
My grief feeds the tide and I shed a single tear: a pearl that joins his funeral cortege.
Eleanor Luke lives in Spain with her husband, two teenagers and a small menagerie. She writes flash fiction, short stories and has a novel in the pipeline. She has been short-listed in the ‘Poetry on the Lake’ short story contest 2020 (as Lucinda Carney) and has been published in the ‘The Dribble Drabble Review’, ‘FlashFlood’ and ‘Rockband Anthology’ by Ghost Orchid Press.
The Birdseed 