orders for sailing

you are a young mermaid
in mourning.


you have swept your long tresses into a knot as a sign that you are grieving.

a loss you never dreamed that you would suffer
before your wedding day.

a loss the other sea girls,
that swim
and dance
and sing
with you
-could never hope
to understand.

for your loss is not
for some human on
the shore,

nor some merman on
the rocks.

you are a young
mermaid
and you
are in mourning

for an old, old man.

a man whose hairs of grey
grow tangled
like the seaweed
in your boudoir.
a man you love
in that
beautiful,
ancestral
way.

a man
that played the accordion
(but only in your dreams of him).
a man that
sat with you and
talked of the gods
in ancient greece
and that really knew
what it was all about
(and that cared.)
a man who swam the shore
with you
alongside an old, rusty train
and made the small
things seem so beautiful.

the smell of kippers in the early morn,
rags found lovingly with you (in boxes)
- in an old salvation army shop.

tall tales of
shipyards
and a land
of maple trees.

you are a young mermaid.

you mourn the loss of a man not quite dead; not quite here.
yet in your dreams
you still listen
to a beautiful,
melodic shanty
in which you are a lily
that holds a lantern
while an old, old man
plays
the accordion.