A Face of Beauty

Vanessa Raney

By most accounts the mermaid is
a vixen of the sea: long tail that stops
below her belly, the breasts free
or hidden by bikini tops, almost
always with long hair
and a face of beauty.

But if we were designed like that
how could we stand the water
so cold the further down we go?
How might we swim if caught
in objects of the sea, much less
outpace those fish with sharper teeth?
As for my face, it's what lures
the smaller fish for me to eat,
the colors changing with the plants.

We make the mermaid more like us
but keep her chaste since no man
could penetrate her tail, then we
pretend she wants to have two legs
since, already, she has the milk
of motherhood – but what use
are breasts to fish? We've seen,
too, the rise of mermen but
while they swim I haven't seen
them kiss or fuck, this to keep
the mermaid more pristine.
More rarely still are stories
of the men who learn too late
that her beauty hides a darker
truth: man-eating monster
with fangs to rip the flesh.

I am a creature of the sea
whose rhythms carry me to depths
you cannot reach but, even if
you find me one day near
you'll never know it's me, as
you only seek a mirror to yourself.

Her Seeming Agitation

Vanessa Raney

Woman with a hoe across her
chest (the part that dips, in
conversation with her
back) stops me, the
position of her
body leaning toward me though
her face is absent an expression, her
upper body reaching closer to my
tank top, asking me if I was cold, her
hand shifting on the longer part of
the tool she uses against her garden, her
demeanor hostile though she doesn't
mean it, history on the lines across her
skin, no makeup on and eyes that
haven't known so many strangers, her
austerity showing in the dust (of the
mountain I matched the rise on), her
family somewhere there, away from
modern need and recompense, her
seeming agitation a mask for the
concern she’s showing me, her
attention on a
foreigner unfamiliar with her
customs, that a woman covers when
it's winter (or was it spring?), like her.

A Loving Trial

Vanessa Raney

In the village people grew up poor, with
some wanting more and finding it. If
college was nothing they could have, a
few still earned professional distinction – say, as
a chef for over 20 years – and made sure their
children had the opportunities their
parents had no money for (though they
never turned their backs on them, loving them for
what they taught them, sharing how
they woke up every day at 7a though they
had little food to eat – the reason their
pantries show a surplus now). These women, they
keep close at least one progeny since
expanded with a spouse, and two kids (the
norm in places like Croatia), living downstairs from
their grand/kids, dropping in and sharing meals, talking while,
sometimes, they ramble on about the differences, from the
ways that they were raised; yet still they take the
newer generations and show them how to cook, play with
them the way grand/mothers should, laughing at the sting,
their memories a loving trial when, today, they're orphans both.