"That girl's eyes loved gazing into water,
in her doubly delightful vision,
but he was still learning the liquid language,
and there's danger and there's damage,
there's envy and derision,
when you love the ocean's daughter.

So he told this girl that of course he had
been in love once but that girl had
turned out to be a mermaid and he couldn't
swim or even go overboard and sink down
to where her eggs were lying like multitudinous,
enticing pearls slowly drifting away
on the luminous white sand
at the bottom
of the blue lagoon.

He didn't really like the water very much,
I guess... so anyway what this girl told me
was that after that he always, ironically,
had the blues, like a deep glinting reflection
in his eyes, like the distant echo
of a soprano saxophone in his ears...

The first time this girl met him, apparently,
he turned to her and said, "What did you say?"
and forced a smile politely to his lips,
his lips that would never kiss an
earth-woman or taste the flower-sweet air
that floats through her, although she may
have any number of his wistful, wondering
children clinging to her skirts while
her tears flow endlessly back to the sea."

01/15/2008