The River-Bent Woman

A hymn of salt and shadow

Digital artwork created by the author using ChatGPT.

I was born in the
red-mouthed hush of
a drowning city, lungs
knotted in brine, eyes

wide as gull-cracked
oysters. The wind bore
me brittle, a bone
of tide, a spool

of salt-threaded longing,
feet river-bent, laced
with silt and sorrow.
Even now, my hands

drip with sloe-dark
shadows. I have kissed
the sunken ribs of
bridges, wept where the

water thieved the light.
I have danced on
alley-worn echoes, where
the night stammers its

hymns to the god-
spilled gutters. O mother
of rust, father of
ash, my blood is

a church of cinders.
I have known the
names of ghosts who
clutch at my throat,

whispering old maps into
my ear. And yet,
I rise, I rise —
a river-bent woman,

a hymn of salt,
a shadow that sings.

© Ani Eldritch, 2025. All Rights Reserved.