When I Say I'm a Mermaid I Cry A Little

In dreams I always wave my goldenrod flags, pluck them into silt and soil every turn around, roundabout, high way troll bridge.

Waddling near the pulsing heart of the sea, expecting hurricanes to convert me, study the glossy-eyed glare of the ocean’s emerald top-coat. Imagine I'm dunked beneath plastic waves, hair thrashed into loose braids. Eyes darkening, swaying in rhythm with the current; dancing seagrass stripping [at] shorelines. Echoes of fins and naked truth sloshing in my ears.

Try to forget my depth. Arms folded tight across rusted ribs, or hands on bloated hips, resisting the call to dive and never gasp again for pregnant air. Heart-of-rain, legs-of-seashells, can’t drop the weight, the clinking utility--I tread rebellion tide by tide. I'm not even a Bey fan but I tasted lemonade, clawed away from each foaming bath with another useless organ.

My dreaming circle says it comes down to the woman I think I am, only existing in a collective of dreamers, ending each day riding a witch thinking I must have that genealogy swimming in my throat but not knowing which tree's roots to tap, searching sea sworn species

eye the distances from buoy to buoy, golden glint of sun to scallop-shelled reflection of timid teardrops finally falling to meet the water I wade in.