Mermaid Fillet

       What the sea took it will return in time, but not the same: a changeling, an impostor. A saucer, a doll, a slipper, something mundane and routine, will reappear strange and unfamiliar, its purpose washed away; it might as well belong to Ancient Romans, or to Incas, or dinosaurs. A shard of glass, a stone all rough and edgy will come back smooth and round; it’s pebble now, a jewel to a wonder-ready heart. A tree (or part of) will return as driftwood, all bleached and creased and gnawed, and polished yet, a semblance of the monsters from the depths rather than a giant, green and rustling. It’s silent now. A bird will float back, all wet and dead, in parody of its free flight, the waves its only sky now and forever - or until the crabs onshore wave their friendly claws, greet its return to land, to soil, to dust. What will the sea return of men? Of all those fishers, sailors, travellers who dared to tread depths, their only hope a piece of wood, a boat, a ship of sails or steam, a giant liner, a submarine, an airplane, or a lifebelt… Oh yeah, it will return a button, a buckle, a bone, a bottle with the scream or sigh inside… But men are more than mere matter. What will the sea return of souls and loves and dreams, wild fantasies, meek prayers? A shanty song, a fancy curse, all stories of the wonders and the horrors, and among, a legend: of maidens - half a human, half a fish, breathing both air and brine, both beautiful and beastly, life-saving and life-taking, Like sea itself. One thing it won’t return, though: when your stare wanders off into the blue (or grey) enormous expanse and lingers there too long, your soul sinks, dissolved in salt and tremour, even if the body stays onshore and even lives and speaks and does its business. But part of you stays in the sea forever.