The Sand Hill Review          http://www.sandhillreview.org                    2005

 

At the Mermaid Bar

 

There are some things you just ought not swallow,

Like the ink of squid squeezed from a body

Mostly living at the bottom of the sea.

 

The fuzzy ten-armed tentacles swimming

In a Mazatlan fish stew make me gag.

There are some things you just ought not swallow.

 

For lunch, beside the Mexicali beer

There were sucker-bearing octopi

Mostly living at the bottom of the sea.

 

Drunk, my man reaches for bare bosoms

Of tan mermaids in the underwater tank.

There are some things you just ought not swallow.

 

As I looked, the fishy women thrust back

My stare, lured on by other-worldly flesh

Mostly living at the bottom of the sea.

 

I longed to lounge in the languid sun,

Submerge belief for what lay beyond,

Mostly living at the bottom of the sea,

There are some things you just ought not swallow.

 

Gail Howard Clark