Kidnapping the Mermaid

I didn’t understand her love of James Salter’s fiction.

She lived the antithesis of his vacuous, fragile female characters of decoration.

She:

played volleyball

drank beer

mourned the death of homeless man in her neighborhood

never used an umbrella

wore thrift store crochet clothing

commanded silently when she wanted to ride on top

helped friends move

She drove three hours to help me load the U-Haul on my last night in Newport.

We packed that truck like pros while drinking IPAs.

Then we dipped into midnight whiskey on the front deck.

I told her I wanted to kidnap a mermaid statue marooned

a block away in a weedy rock garden of a house vacant for five years.

I just couldn’t leave the mermaid there,

facing away from the ocean a block away,

tasting sea spray.

She was game.

I pitched the caper.

She made excellent modifications.

We unscrewed the lights to her license plates.

I set out on foot.

She followed a hundred yards behind,

nudging through a ghost town of a neighborhood

that had no through traffic,

rarely any traffic at all.

I walked up the dark driveway,

snatched the mermaid,

walked away.

Seconds later,

I held the mermaid in my lap

while she drove us home, laughing,

slapping the steering wheel.

Thirteen years later,

I write this poem for her,

staring at the mermaid,

named for my accomplice,

reading James Salter again,

thinking about what happened

when she clawed into the world,

if she fulfilled her extraordinary potential.