This is just one of many many beautiful paintings by Erica Chappuis.

When the still sea conspires in armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead

Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

The Doors (hat tip: Srange Days Song Notes)

They say the horses tossed overboard in the doldrums would swim for miles alongside of the ships, or in their wake, until they couldn't swim any more, and they drowned. The sailors were haunted by nightmares of the horses' panic-stricken whinnies and cries for the rest of the voyage.

And probably for a long time after that.

Once, when the bully I was married to a lifetime ago decided that it wasn't OK for me to spend the night somewhere safe and away from him and his fistfuls of wrath with what then were our one- and two-year-old children, just babies really, and his property certainly, and issued escalating and ugly threats one after the other in a hateful torrent over the telephone to the people who'd taken His Wife and His Kids in, people who never should have tossed me out, never, never, never in a million years--they told me I had to go. I had to go back to that house with that monster and take two innocents with me.

I was just going to have to talk to him.

Calm him down.

Stay the hell out of his way.

Hot salt tears glazed my eyes as they explained that there were the neighbors to think about, you see. I was mute at their out loud questioning about what if he came to the gated complex where they were lived and caused a row? What if they had to call the police? Foam green water rushed up around my ears in their beautifully decorated dining room. What if he broke the door down? The waves were breaking over me, nearly knocking the fine china from its display case. After all, he'd just threatened to kill them. I imagined the authentic oriental rug with its gold thread the color of Spanish treasure waterlogged and ruined. How would they ever face their neighbors again after that?

There were no panic stricken cries as I was jettisoned over.

Only the undertow.