Jessica
The Mermaid Ascends
Standing above
her lover and his bride,
the mermaid
makes her choice. The knife
is heavy in her palm.
She kisses his forehead, sees
that he does not wake.
The mermaid flings
the knife into the water.
The seas seethe
red, gurgle
like blood. There is only
one thing left for her to do.
She takes one last leap
on her borrowed legs,
one last breath
with her new lungs.
The air tastes salty,
even without her tongue.
She never feels
her impact.
One moment
she is aloft
and the next she is crushed
by walls of blue. Water
floods her nostrils, fills
her mouth, fills
her lungs. She is not scared,
just curious as she feels
every molecule dissolve
into foam. But then,
just as she finally lets go
of her sinking body,
hands encircle her, fish her
out of the waves. She rises
out of her father’s kingdom,
above her lover’s ship, above
the crowded city. She feels
sun on her permeable skin
as she floats weightless
to her next home.
***
3 down, 27 to go.
(2 on prompt, 1 off prompt.)
I am off prompt today, as you can see above, because I am working against the clock. I have to submit a group of poems to my real-life writing group on Monday, which means that I would like to finish my mermaid poems by tomorrow. These poems are based on this translation of the Hans Christian Andersen “The Little Mermaid” story.
At this point, I have one more to go. Funny enough, this is the last poem in the series, as this covers the end of the story. The other two poems I wrote represent number two and number three in the series. I wrote number three first, then number two, and now I have finished number four. I will hopefully draft the first in the series tomorrow. Confusing enough? Whether I like it or not, this is the way my brain works – out-of-order and jumbly.
Now that I’ve written the majority of this series, I am learning more about why I am attracted to this story. Beyond the obvious connection between my knee surgery and rehabilitation with the mermaid losing her legs, there is an element of redemption through losing corporeality that I find really interesting. As I continue to work on this series along with the other poems about my injury, I think that this may be what I am writing towards now. I don’t think I can express it more than that now, but it leaves me something to examine.
