Elegy For a Mermaid
who wanted nothing
more than to be realer
than the pigments
of a picture book;
who emerged from the oyster shell
knowing that the most fascinating
thing about her was not all the laps
she could swim, but all the creatures
she could mother;
who towel-dried her hair
with a treasure map because
the X was never all that enticing,
who ripped the needles from
compasses to make compact
mirrors for the barnacles;
who stayed up all night to
dry their tears and
whisper in their ears
that the shipwrecks
just wouldn’t be
the same without them;
who picked the locks
on lacquered trunks,
then left the coins
for the clams;
who spoon-fed sea froth
to the guppies,
who lent her scales
to the shedding water snakes,
who housed the hermit crabs
in her cove when their shells
gave up on them;
who is sinking now under the weight
of a shrimp net, swallowing salted mud,
spine severed by the fisherman’s hook,
whose under-eyes glisten like pearls
while blood blooms in her wake,
crimson as the coral
no one will leave at her grave.
who is ebbing, receding like the tide, but
who goes down smiling, remembering
how the ocean almost loved her, hoping
that, to any one of them, she was real.
Caroline Wolff is a queer and disabled poet and essayist from San Antonio, TX. She is currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing while working as an Arts & Culture journalist at San Antonio Current. When she isn’t writing, you can find her devouring a novel, going to pilates, snuggling with her tuxedo cat, or failing her driving test (again).
The Marbled Sigh 