The Mermaid Speaks*

ok, it’s true, everything they have said
I have eaten men as you would a tangerine:
thoughtlessly, reverently, juice smeared about
my mouth.

perhaps you would blame me, call me bloodthirsty
along with the rest of my kin –the canaima
the ole higue, even the mazaruni. roust up a gang of the young
brave on palm wine
to come and stake me

and I laugh as surely as you weep on my shores (this
ownership you’ll forgive me – I took it as the dutch
did your children). your forebears came on the same
hunt after I ate another man (your granddaddy?).
forgive me, he was lovely. ripe copper skin warmed
with the sun, singing among the white lotus as if he could
charm the roots of trees into fealty. I remember weeping
with my sisters below in our city, maybe he wept too
-its been so long, I can’t be sure, and there is nothing
I want to pretend with you. so I did what was impossible:
swam up, struggling past the pleas of my own mother,
burst through the Pomeroon and beseeched
him into my arms. (yes I say begged without shame,
you know the men of your blood, what they can drive you to do).
and forward he came, fearful of drowning dancing into my naked red arms
and when i ate him, he urged me on, sang with delight as my teeth met
the cradle of his flesh. I have heard his wife crying
at our shores, hands tethered to her children, dragging them to and fro
as if her love could raise him. the fishermen say she
went mad with grieving, is this true?

* in Guyana, mermaids, also known as water babies, have a long and complex history within historical narratives exploring the enslavement of African people. Sometimes seen as harbingers of good luck, mermaids were also warned to be cursed creatures who would kidnap your beloved and drive them mad.