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.
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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Greetings from the 505! Thank you for poemizing the essence of that tale--well done!