the Mermaid

i.                

The woman I have lived with for twenty-one years paused in the hallway

as I was leaving for the bar. She had stepped out, briefly, from washing

the dishes, and was drying a glass with the towel in her hands.

She said “well happy birthday, then,” and it was just about six o’clock in the evening.

I paused with my coat half on, and a hand that had been searching for money

in a trouser pocket, where it had found some; crinkled and sticky, and an

unknown amount. I doubted it would be much, but I was sure it might be enough.

This woman and I (whom I’ve said that I loved twice: once on our wedding, and once when my father had asked me as much in a roundabout way

without meeting my eyes, and then I’d only said “yes”)

studied each other without malice or glee, like two cows grazing together in a field,

and I have loved her the way I was taught, and never better, and she has done the same thing with me.

I thought I should only say “thank you”, but then I faltered a moment before asking

whether she thought my birthday was really the sixth, or if she’d believed that today

was the fifth.

And she carried on watching me without any shock, her wrists still working the fabric round the mouth of the dish,

and she hesitated, also, a moment before answering “of course, I’d thought that today was the fifth,”

then she turned and walked back to the kitchen once more, and left me darkening the threshold of her door.

ii.               

The wind blows so frightful

out there on the cliffs

plunging down to the great briney deep

Here’s two claps of thunder

for men standing stiff,

and trying hard now to fend off their sleep

(ho, ho, ho, they blow and off with my body they’ll go!)

Boys, I saw a sight full

down there by the cliffs

so pretty that I stopped to weep

for she called out my name

and scared me to bits

as I felt my limbs longing to leap

to her down below

where I’ll be battered and biffed

and my body collect in a heap

(ho, ho, ho she blows and off with my body she’ll go!)

As her hair she was combing

I asked myself if

her tail I could sever and keep

But I know of her kind

I’d be dead in a tiff

And my appetite I’d surely reap

Oh, she’ll beat me (she’ll eat me!)

She’ll cut me (she’ll gut me!)

Boys, she’ll surely drink of my blood

She’ll shame me (she’ll maim me!)

She’ll bite me (she’ll smite me!)

She’ll leave me there dead in the mud

(BUT!)

She’ll clutch me (she’ll touch me!)

She’ll mould me (she’ll hold me!)

Oh, she’ll make of me such a fuss

(and we’ll be jealous, yes, all of us)

So, I leave my poor widow

to mourn on the cliffs

for her poor butchered boy in the deep

(ho, ho, ho it blows and off with my body it goes!)

iii

A barrage of waves is breaking themselves to pieces on the serrated crags

and exploding like grenades.

 I duck for cover and brace;

lift my arms above my head when I can spare briefly the grasp

to protect from their mean, icy spray.

But their fragments launch from daft impact alone,

salting my wounds and my vision. I recall

that it is dark, dark, dark- everything is black,

and I lost my form against this landscape of Earth

broken off into rough, uneven pieces of dirt

and sky, and deep water, and breaking my heart,

foaming at its doors. I feel the gales loose,

lifting the corners of the mouth

and cheeks, and flipping my eyelids inside out.

I went to spit out the gore, but expelled only saltwater and teeth

and cannot believe I could have lived for this long without her.

I want to hold the mermaid in my arms;

I want to kiss her so she may bite back some blood

into my lips that have long since gone numb

scaling the way down to her formidable limbs.

I want her to heal the bone that is protruding

from my shin after the bad, clumsy fall,

and I want her to dress the cuts on my chest

from when I was then made to crawl.

I want to be with the mermaid who ails me

only metres now from where I am lost,

and screaming with violence, and  

crying rain, and it is raining salt.

And in my wildest dreams, I am already upon her-

the mermaid turns to regard me from over her shoulder-

so little space is left between this and the comforted.

Some fingernails dislodge as I propel myself forth,

and I know I have broken fingers as they became caught

between the rocks on the descent to her perch.

I struggle for breath as a lung collapses on itself,

and some part of my scalp is hanging by a thin knot of hair,

and my feet are cold and hard on the stones that tear

through the skin like fishing boats through the water

on some other day, when it was clear and safe,

under a bright, brilliant sky buoyed by fishermen’s laughter,

and I just cannot believe I could have lived for so long without her.