DUYONG 1

At midnight, the old men gather with oil lanterns aboard their fishing boats. This is when I feed. With rosaries in hand, they stab the water with machetes. Their sons say, “Do not be foolish. There are no more mermaids here. It is the crocodiles who are stealing our brothers.”

Crocodiles! Ridiculous.

Crocodiles are not slick. My dolphin skin withstands the men’s machetes. But make no mistake; the old men give me many scars.

From tangles of nets in the shallows, the old men cut me loose. They pray I may quickly find open sea. But do not think this is kindness.

As for their sons, their bodies come slipping deep into my home. Hands and feet, bound. Salvaged bodies full of soldiers’ bullets, blooming blood flowers in my water. I sing them to sleep in my garden. If the old men only knew what care I take, bedding the sleeping sons of fishermen, warming their bodies in blankets of mud.

DUYONG 2

DUYONG 2

You are the dreaming girl who walks outside of herself, into tidelands’ star jasmine vine weaving, dripping sea spray. The air pulls your tiny feet, and you wiggle bare toes in the cool sand.

You are the rosy-faced girl who walks outside of herself. Tongues of moonlight penetrate banana leaf and coconut palm canopies. Chirping above you, dragonflies buzz and flit, deep magenta fire. Golden leaf birds and fairy bluebirds call you back to your father. You are the girl who does not heed her father’s chirping messengers.

You listen to the story of branches, dipping their oversweet pink fruit into the swelling sea, touching smoothed wet stone. Wading waist-deep past the old men’s boats, you tangle your mangrove fingers in the thick black ropes of your hair. You are the girl sloughing off dampened skin, blooming jade green, wild silken tendrils.

You remember your father’s faint once upon a time. Something about danger. Something about the water who appears as a woman before you. She takes your hand, and your new skin ripens midnight violet. You are the girl whose new tail mimics a silver slicing razor.

DUYONG 3

DUYONG 3

I hear of men who love the sea cow. Pale skinned men, long delirious upon the balmy sea, they crawl ashore hungry, engorged. At the sight of them, she cries, and they think this is a siren song.

They ravish her stinking skin, her fleshy teats, with so many groping man hands and wet, open man mouths. One by one, they enter her body and spill so much seed. She cries, and with their spears, they slit her open and taste a feast of almond oil and sumptuous veal. She cries.

I am certain my song does not resemble hers.

DUYONG 4

DUYONG 4