Of seaweed, fins and mer-courting


Up above the water surface
A storm is raging in all full might
But down below in secret Atlantis
The merpeople are in for a soirée of delight.

Tonight is the prince's hundredth birthday
And time for him to choose a bride
Luminous jellyfish are hung as lights
While long, silky seaweed twinkle in the night
Strings of ivory pearls hang down from the ceiling
Glittering subtly in this candlelight dinner setting

Having spent much time exfoliating their tails
And using Mdm Beautail's cosmetics ordered specially by mail
The mermaids swim in with tails of the newest colour
Each one, the prince thought, looked like his mother
Too fat, too thin, too average, too perfect
The prince was not an easy merman to please

Then he saw her, the great tease
Waving at him shyly with her nicely-shaped fin
With heart a-thumping and most courageous grin
He walked up to her and asked, "Shall we swim?"

Simply nodding her head in agreement
They whiled away the hours, which left the others indignant
Then the clock struck twelve and bewitching hour afoot
The possible bride opened her mouth and said,
"Excuse me oh scaly one (a compliment) excuse me so
I simply, really have to go."

Now the prince here that had read Cinderella
Feared greatly that he would forever lose his bella
(You must know that finding a mermaid's foot to fit a slipper
was physically impossible since they only had flippers)

Tensing his arm muscles and swimming at full scale
He grabbed wildly and got her tail
"Ouch!" she shrieked "What are you doing you oaf?"
"Why trying to keep you my honey-buttered toast!"
Between choking sobs he begged her to stay
And she of Mensa intelligence understood what happened right away
Touched to the coronary artery of her half-fishy heart
She swore to be a shopping cart
If he were a supermart

"Now I've really got to pay a visit to the dear old loo,
which I meant to go to before you stuck to me like glue!"
The prince now utterly embarrassed
Ruffled his hair into an unruly mess
Looking so sexily masculine
That many a mermaid swooned over him
Then she returned and all hopes were lost
For in his eyes they saw she mattered most

In less than a fortnight they were married
With Poseidon as their witness
It was only then that onlookers noticed
That on the bride's tail was a fin less
A sacred ritual thus made more beautiful
By the overlooking of physical appearance

Together would the couple rule with no help from any tools
Except remaining eternally in love like two blissful fools
A living example that love is what binds us after all
Even after time has worn away statues and dried up waterfalls.