How to Make a Woman Out of Water

by Charles Bennett (How to Make a Woman

Out of Water, Enitharmon)Move to a boathouse by a river -

the walls must be yellow, the windowsills blue.

Sleep downstairs with your head upstream,

wait for a dream of swimming.

When it rains all night and you lie awake

collecting the music of a leak

and reading The Observer's Book of Water

until you've learned that chapter

on whirlpools and waterspouts by heart,

listen to her whisper and giggle

as she scribbles her slippery name

over and over down the glass.

Have a bucketful of oysters in the sink

in case she's feeling peckish

and a case of Rainwater sherry

chilling in a cave behind the waterfall.

At the bottom of the well there's one white pebble -

put it beneath your tongue

until it dissolves into a kiss.

Become so dry she will slip

into the shape of your thirst.

Prepare to be a shiver on her surface.

Taste her arrival on the wind.

This is a poem for the lovelorn; it is a recipe for hope, for wishful thinking, for the manifestation of dreams.

But first, we must be near water, so we should move to a boathouse because it is built over the water. The prerequisite colour scheme of blue and yellow might represent sun and sky or sun and water; yellow being feminine, blue, masculine (a happy colour combination if nothing else). The poet informs us that one must also sleep downstairs and that one's head should be upstream. So the dream of swimming would echo the dream that salmon have, of swimming upstream to find spawning grounds and multiply. It could also save one's life, because if one is sleeping downstairs in a boathouse one is effectively in the water.

You must, when performing the rites that may conjure up your water-made woman, collect the music of water dripping from a leak (and remember, it's more musical if collected in a tin bucket), because all aspects of water become important when the mind constructs an entity using only the materials at hand.

You must also be wise about water. The Observer's books are marvellously informative about animals, wild flowers, birds' eggs and even weather, so why not water too... One might imagine that when the woman made of water laughs or rages she creates the whirlpools and waterspouts mentioned. And when she “scribbles her slippery name/ over and over down the glass” it is the rain streaking against the windows, each rivulet like a signature.

The poet recommends the preparation of food (we all have to eat), and of course oysters are both aphrodisiac and born of water. The theme of all things wet is maintained when the “Rainwater sherry” is kept in a cave behind a waterfall; the only thing missing is a waterbed.

I see the pebble at the bottom of the well as symbolic of making a wish. But instead of throwing a coin into the well - a place from which one draws water - you must take a pebble out. The instructions are to put it beneath your tongue until it dissolves into a kiss, but what if the stone never melts? If it never dissolves it will mean that your fantasy is unobtainable; that water is not a woman and pebbles can never be kisses. One might spend years with a pebble beneath one's tongue. A pebble-shaped pouch could wear into your flesh before it ever dissolved.

However, if one drinks water the woman of water will fill one's emptiness. “Become so dry,” the poet tells us, “she will slip/ into the shape of your thirst.” Some believe that if we make a space for the person (event, possession, achievement) we wish for, then eventually that spot may be appropriately filled.

We are told to “Prepare to be a shiver on her surface” because water is generally cold, and the magical woman (or man, let's say, for the women among us), might own flesh as chilly as a river. If it is possible to taste her arrival on the wind then it is surely about to pour with rain. When drenched, the woman made of water will indeed embrace you, and perhaps that pebble will melt after all.