Size / / /

She spends them on lonely doorsteps waiting for them to open.
She studies her pigeon.
He finds her there, fins brown and shabby,
But her face so divine.

He lifts her light as a feather into his arms.
In salt water she tenderizes in his tub,
Till her fins come alive again,
All blue and gold and quite appetizing.
With directions from her, he knows how to do it.

He lays her on his bed;
He wipes her down with a terry cloth robe
His mom gave him for Christmas.

With a pizza cutter he cuts into her fins
To unveil heaven sent smooth legs
Like the Venus razor commercial promises.

They eat the fins with butter; it tastes like lobster.
They have sex every night,
But with anything taken from the sea,
After a week it starts to stink.

She waits till he goes to work,
Then she makes her move to move on.
Always, she leaves her pigeon happy.

If it wasn't for Sandy,
She would have made it to Florida for the winter
Instead of playing it safe and wintering in Chicago.

How a mermaid spends her winters?
Like an evangelist she goes door to door;
She is down now to two choices in this building.
The man who wears dresses like a woman,
Or the woman that beards like a man.

She choose the latter.
She climbs the flight of stairs with ease.
Before knocking on the door, she lays on the welcome mat.

Then takes the shaker of salt like cocaine to the head,
Watches as her fins start to grow; she wets and pouts her lips
And gives her best fish out of water eyes to whoever opens the door.

Publication of this poem was made possible by a donation from Kip Manley. (Thanks, Kip!) To find out more about our funding model, or donate to the magazine, see the Support Us page.



Marchell Dyon is from Chicago, Illinois. Her work has appeared in many publications in print and online. Her most recent work has appeared in Full of Crow, Rainbow Rose Ezine, Blue Lake Review (June 2013), A Little Poetry, and Medusa's Kitchen.
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4 Dec 2023

“Ask me something only I would know.” You say this to your wife because you know you’re human. You can feel it in the familiar ache in your back, and the fear writhing in your guts. You feel it in the cold seeping into your bare feet from the kitchen floor. You know you’re real because you remember.
now, there is the shape...humanoid, but not / necessarily human
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