Watching you drink me, feeling you think me, I drown in the threads of your thoughts as they struggle to sink me.
Alchemy.
Notes trill through my teeth like krill through a reef and I atrophy.
Barnacled bricks stuck limpet slick,
Knuckles are shredded, my blood runs thick,
Breathing the depths of your full fathom eyes, my oyster flesh pinking in sympathy.
- Octavia Bright
Inspired by photograph by Thurstan Redding
Commissioned and Performed by The Hermes Experiment (Héloïse Werner, sop, Anne Denholm, harp, Oliver Pashley, clarinet, Marianne Schofield, double bass)