Mermaid:While Being Schooled On Land

(to Hans Christian Andersen)

to live part mermaid always dreaming of the sea
even while being schooled on land
how could she make her sisters understand

and when at night in agony the warm salt water
gushed from her veins there was no one to see.
she dreamed of coral of the way the green light filtered

down when she was with her parents thinking of surfaces
of the upwards light and everything azure.
now she swims on land and suffers for it

and sheds scaly tears under no opal moonlight at all.
what can she reveal. her habitat is small
and likely to become stranger

the seahorse memories crowding in
and the rainbow fins.

something in her aches
towards becoming a soul

mary angela douglas 7 may 2020