THE TRUTH ABOUT MERMAIDS

I have always hated stories
where the woman gets the legs.
I know what they don’t tell you,
about the way she wakes early now,
tiptoes to her tiny hidden box
and peeks in.

It’s where she keeps her scales,
and when she touches them,
in the secret early morning,
I know even what she smells—
not the sea or salt or fish,
but rust and metal, the smell
of a wounded animal.

This part I like. It reminds me
how violent these stories are,
the hours spent after the ordeal
scrubbing blood from fingernails
at the sink, the angry mythic way
women spend their lives,
always finding seaweed
in their clothes.

HOW TO LOSE PENNIES

How to forget the corners of his lips: tell myself that in the next life,
things will happen slower and with music. Think of twirling pasta with him
for hours, or standing before a mirror with an earring in one ear,
hands poised above the other, just because he loved watching how naturally

women threaded their ears, gestures as vivid as being turned to salt.
Imagine stealing coins from his pockets, still warm from his fingers,
and holding them till your fingers turn copper.
Then, you will even notice how his lips make p’s and w’s,

what he does with his thumbs when he walks,
what time of the day he is most prone to whistle.
It will take two months to bury his favorite cat
in the backyard, enough time to memorize the colors in the dirt,

or clouds, as the case may be. Imagine the time it will take
to experience a kiss. Imagine a word like your name
becoming slow, clear, almost spelled in the air,
time enough to untangle him like jewelry.

This life, the second movement. The adagio.
And then, things will be lost beautifully, with weights tied around
their middles, like witches once were tossed in water,
and we will watch them twirl like pennies to the bottom