Rachel Contemplates Slow Motion

By Jessica Hudson

	after Cher’s 1990 film Mermaids

One of my daughters prefers to sleep underwater. 
Before bed, she holds her breath for five seconds 

short of the world record, stopwatch gripped 
in her fist raised high above the bathwater. 

I can’t watch. As the slitted lampshade ripples 
yellow light over the blue walls and paper fishes,

she drifts off. We’re each determined to survive 
in those places where we don’t belong. To settle 

for change rather than slow-motion ourselves 
into a settled life. In the kitchen, we bump hips 

and bop our heads to Jimmy Soul. Eat stars
for dinner: fruity hors d’oeuvres slipping 

down damp toothpicks. Our life is so much 
better than a kiss. My older daughter defines

resolution as wish. This year I wish to be—
who knows? Cherished, I think, but cannot say 

aloud because tonight I am a mermaid, blond
curls and glittering crown, my cardboard tail 

strung to one wrist raised high so I can dance. 

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Jessica Hudson (she/her) received her Creative Writing MFA from Northern Michigan University. Her work has been published in several literary magazines, and her first poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Jessica lives in Albuquerque, NM with an experimental artist and a black cat. 

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