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The preoperative marks are made. Bells
ring. I'm pried from the bow
of a ship, dredged from the forgotten half
of a waking sailor's dream: woman with tail
born in shallows, twenty feet
deep, sans legs, song
in throat. My body knows this song.
It's in me, as peals in bells,
the prettiest in the sea. But I wish for feet.
You know-- that bow
of arch, little toes, to be rid the tail,
this scaled end, my heavier half.
So I went deeper than my birth-reef, to the half
of sea no one sees and traded my song
for legs. Down deep I met old Gravy Tail
in her lair strung with bells
ringing, ringing. She's earless and wears a bow
on her head to hide it. So you want feet?
she squeaks. Her serpents howl Feeeet! Feeeet! Feet!
I say: I'll give you my voice, the high half
you can hear. I scrape and bow,
plead with her. But she wants the whole song,
certain she could add to her bells,
cure herself. Take my tail,
too. I notice her trophies, many a tail
mounted, used as feet
for the table, hollowed for bells.
I am boxed. She saws me in half,
a
good magician. Song
gone, my will and wishes bow
to Her Imperial Deafness. I dream I'm bow-
pinned, painted wood, my tail
decorating the hull of a burning ship, my song
a disaster: men fling themselves, feet
first, over head. They drown. My hair's at half
mast as they ring the sea. Rings spread: a bell's
plangent song, sinking. Now I watch tail bow
and arch, flip and wriggle without me. New feet,
half-
healed already,
bleed. Unlike the loud bell of tail.
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