dirty-blond
locks
down
to her radiant waist,
seven
feet tall
from
head to fin,
breasts
pale as moonlight,
full
and
round
and
undulant
with
the natural ebb and flow
of
the tide,
and
when she breathed the filthy air
her
tail transformed:
two
long legs
in
four-inch black stilettos.
In
her deep blue
jeans
and tight emerald T-shirt
adorned
with sequined starfish,
she
bedazzled the brine-encrusted fishermen
who
tried to drown her
with
endless shots of whiskey,
poking
and prodding
and
hoping to force her
to
entertain
like
a trained seal
in
the mud-brown backroom.
But
when she awoke,
nearly
choking in a warm pool of blood,
the
men were pinned to the wooden planks
by
an enormous trident,
diamond
tipped
and
wreathed in seaweed,
and
the mermaid
now
fully awake
proceeded
to
the ocean.
