A/N: My first crack at a "myth poem." I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is loved.

Siren

I heard once

that across the Red River,

thirty miles south of where

the thornbushes grow wild into a

solid wall, there is a ghost town

in the valley surrounded by mountains.

A ghost town in ruins, each house

missing a roof or a wall, sometimes

just stripped down to its foundation,

and an impermeable layer of black

smog hanging around its streets. Some

people say it was ravaged in the war

a few years back, and some say that

everyone just left one day, and the

still-lit empty houses tore themselves

apart in their loneliness.

One stayed behind.

A small girl in a blue dress that has

grown grayish and dirty with

too much wear, and long,

ash-colored hair that covers her face.

They say if you're very quiet,

and very still, she'll approach you,

tilting her head back to let her

hair slide back off her face. Her eyes

are wide, deep and completely white

and so large they threaten to swallow

her face whole, and she smiles simply

and says in a small voice: "Listen,

traveler, can I sing you a song?"

And if you refuse, she will follow

you all the way to the mountains,

empty eyes pleading, asking

over and over and over,

her voice echoing in your ears

long after you leave.

But I've been told that one day,

a man came to that town

with no baggage and no destination,

and he leaned up against a ruined wall,

waiting for her. And when he was asked,

he smiled back, a bright smile

that lit his gaunt, sunken face. "Please."

Her voice is the center of the sun,

the hot core pouring from her lips

and covering the entire valley

in melted light, and it paralyzes

his every nerve. At first, it is just

tiny fingers drumming up his

spine as each blood vessel vibrates

to her song, the sharps and flats

of a tune vaguely familiar, but

lost somewhere in his memory,

and then it is a numbness sweeping

through his limbs, heart, and mind

until he is detached from his body.

They say she'll be young, they'll both be

young, as long as she keeps singing,

so her song keeps going, repeating,

a little different each time she reaches

the refrain, until her voice breaks

in her throat. She opens her mouth

wide to begin again, only to swallow

cold, silent air.