Mermaid Potluck

This mermaid grotto, these passionflower petals

for anxious thoughts, float therapy, cobalt blue

like hyacinth macaws or delphinium

flower crowns in wind-whipped hair, salt air 

Cold water cousins—the Newfoundland selkies &

deep-sea sirens with shrimpish tails, pale pink

at the mermaid feasting, the potluck of parrot eggs,

wild apricot, tender bulbs from Cape pondweed—

an offering from the greenhouse variety of mermaids,

all of them wives in garden ponds & clawfoot bathtubs, 

porcelain-skinned, white-haired, eating calamari &

sweet lobster paired with dirty martinis,

their siren songs are Taylor Swift poetics, pearl-necklaced,

bent verklempt over Victorian novels in fan scallop bras

Mermaids in the Gulf of Mexico are scientists, shark midwives,

studying seahorse in the seagrass, seaweed harvesters

like mermaids in the Argentine Patagonia—cold, blubbered,

napping with the elephant seals

West African mermaids wear cowrie shells in their locs,

brightly smiling, songs of sailors in the gulf,

berry flush on dark cheeks, yearning for lovers

in the Philippine Sea, manta tail maidens, their stingers &

coral beads wrapped around wrists &

singing throats, gifts for Inuit mermaids of the Arctic Ocean:

Ice flow perches, shrinking, swimming with polar bears—

while they can—seal hunts, pickled blubber

Everyone loves narwhal Muktuk at the mermaid potluck

& saskatoon berry jam from South Saskatchewan River mermaids,

their glossy walleye scales, their porcupine quill beadwork earrings

This tooth sharpening, this wretched hiding in riparian grasses

Australian mermaids are musicians, play the Didgeridoo, collect sea glass

for table settings. This mermaid grotto, again, pool-blue, ancient music

And, the wailing in the Great Pacific garbage patch, the plastic, 

the seaweed rag for oil spills, the shark-tailed mermaid—

She is not at the potluck this year

Smaller, smaller, this rock table on the ocean floor, but there is room

Emily Bulicz-Arnelien