My Uncle Giuseppe told me
that in Sicily in World War Two,
in the courtyard behind the aquarium,
where the bougainvillea grows so well,
the only captive mermaid in the world
was butchered on the dry and dusty ground
by a doctor, a fishmonger, and certain others.

She, it, had never learned to speak
because she was simple, or so they’d said,
but the priest who held one of her hands
while her throat was cut,
said she was only a fish, and fish can’t speak.
But she screamed like a woman in terrible fear.

And when they took a ripe golden roe
from her side, the doctor said
this was proof she was just a fish
and anyway an egg is not a child,
but refused when some was offered to him.

Then they put her head and her hands
in a box for burial
and someone tried to take her wedding ring,
but the others stopped him,
and the ring stayed put.

The rest they cooked and fed to the troops.
They said a large fish had been found on the beach.

Starvation forgives men many things,
my uncle, the aquarium keeper, said,
but couldn’t look me in the eye,
for which I thank God.

My grandfather on my mother’s side
was a great fisherman.
Though I didn’t share his passion,
I would go and sit beside him by the river,
my float drifting, hook unbaited,
catching nothing, reading Homer,
while he seemed to swirl beside me: a djinn
inside a flashing silver weave
of fin and ruby blood, in love
with every living moment of the day.

I was far away when he died
and missed the funeral, but later, by his grave,
I watched my grandmother
stand alone against a darkening sky,
and knew that unseen down below
he was part of the curving world
that supported her as she stood there,
and also when she walked away.

Six months later, I saw him once:
a fish from the neck down,
lazily swimming between the reeds,
wrapped up in his own thoughts.
He didn’t see me
and I was able to watch him feeding on insects
for several precious minutes.
Then, with a dull gold flick of his tail
and a smile on his face,
he went from my life forever.