I constructed a mermaid
gave her red hair of seaweed and debris
blue-glass ocean scraps of eyes
and seashell swollen breasts.

I carved her stomach at a twenty-eight
gave her a mighty chest of forty
and dangerous hips in forty-four.

When the ocean swell quelled her away
and left her memories upon the beach to decay,
I called myself Ariel, and placed the seaweed in my locks.
I carved myself in arbutus, and warmed my toes in the rocks.