Mermaid on the Rocks
she will not remember
this morning tomorrow
she will not remember
in her Ambien daze
she became a mermaid
her legs fused
her flopping on tile floor
in hall out of water
and crying
her eyes closed
her tangled hair
spreading like kelp
around her head
a presence over her
hovering
hands peel back her skin
without pain
and prize her one leg into two
then roll skin back up her legs
without pain
a voice from above
lift your hips now
she has been caught
transformed again
and she cries more
her naked shoulders
shuddering
against cold tile
her pale breasts
trembling
her head rolling
side to side
on its bed of kelp
tears dropping
from closed eyes
into the rocks
she will not remember
this tomorrow
after that happened to her
after that she became the sound of doors
clunking closed down the hall, a hollow
final distant click-clunk outside the class,
loud but far, something cutting off escape
and sealing air inside to divide her
from all the not her elsewhere in the school
after that she became the sandstone shade
semi gloss painted on the classroom walls
and down the halls, the faintest not at all
brown but not quite white, the color that
disappeared behind announcements and posters,
the color that watched other lives pass by
after that she changed from puppy to cat—
to watcher from window sill, to lurker,
to feline presence that could shrink itself
to box or bag or basket, to close safe
spaces where her stillness could curl itself
and observe the re-runs of daily life
after that she transformed to subsonic
super speed hummingbird's iridescent
flight that darts and disappears in trees,
that retreats in limb shadow and leaf rustle,
that hides itself in sudden shifts, in small
bursts of dusky feathers there then gone
after that she became a stone and sank
right to the bottom, right to the shadows,
where light came as yellowish wavering
ripples that slid across her then let her
disappear again, a rock, silent
and motionless, alone in deep water
Abandon in the Library: A Fantasia
The day the salesman came to demonstrate
advances in cataloging software
and sturdiness of library furniture,
I discovered how my colleague loved tattoos
between hemline and neck, from cuff to cuff,
a female analog to Bradbury’s illustrated man,
and all of hers on that day a single
breathless, athletic story in beautiful,
eye-opening performance, one extended O
of exhilaration, and, before I knew
what came over me, I too was nude,
my birthmark revealed in undulant writhing
glory and on my lips the salty thrill
of Kama Sutra exertions and that tome
we kept behind the circulation desk
was out and on display by special request.
We moved together mindfully through poses
like flexible, ardent yoga acolytes,
like acrobats in tantric harmony.
We shushed no one and heard no shushings,
no inhibition’s censorship, no fear
of judgment’s hissing sibilation the day
my love of library science renewed itself
and glowed, a newly translated Dead Sea scroll,
an old truth discovered anew again,
and all the sacred yearnings of the spirit
were embodied most fully and truly
and everywhere was the Library of Congress
and adequate funding was had by all.
Somewhere between Two Bad Places
On the eve of spring our daughter
slipped into darkness one last time
and pulled after her the rosebuds
and last low rain clouds and their rain.
She sighed a thin, exhausted breath
and went, too, a winter weak, tired,
bereft and finally done with gloom,
with frost and fear and windy slice.
She swallowed all the shades of pink
from hint of blush to sunset streak.
She folded all her dreams (and ours)
like childhood clothes she had outgrown
and could not wear. We watched her pack
those dreams (and some unrealistic hopes)
in dark green garbage bags for us
to haul to St. Vincent de Paul’s
donation center when she went.
Now, when we see someone like our
daughter dressed, she flickers somewhere
between jealousy and regret.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) to enjoy. He has been trying to learn the names of all the birds that visit the yard he shares with his patient partner, the mother of their children. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, The Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere.
and elsewhere.