I am the mermaid
who saved the prince.
He thinks it was that other woman.

I am not alone:
at night my sisters
rise to the surface of the waves.
They sing to me
of knives and blood.

I love and I wait
without knowing
of anything else to do.

I walk with the prince
in the garden
and cannot speak.
The slicing pain
in my strange new feet
never stops,
but I dance.

I grieve for the days
of water,
the days when I did not know
the game of excuses,
betrayal,
the burden of walking,
the sweat of unexplained hope.

To be foam on the sea
will be just as good
as loving and waiting
and dancing and grieving
and having no home
and no tongue.