That hot summer

we were mermaids. Our skin was salt-glistened,
slick. Legs fused into piscine tails, and residual
 
memories of walking receded with each tide-turn.
Newly gilled, we stayed under for hours, spooling
 
s-shapes over and over. Sometimes we surfaced
to haunt rock pools, poring over the sea’s discarded
 
spoils. Faces immersed, we sucked in trapped sprats,
relishing the salinity on our greedy tongues, our teeth
 
picked clean with ruined crab-claws as we wallowed
in our fishiness. We were untamed, all tangled hair
 
and shining eyes. Our language was guttural, secret –
all we needed, ululating into the vinegar-sharp air,
 
proclaiming dominion over sea-anemones, amber,
samphire, driftwood, starfish, belemnites, limpets.
 
Whelk-shells were garlanded, primitive amulets
worn to ward off September: its uniforms, its shoes,
 
its rules.
 

Sarah Doyle

shortlisted in the Live Canon Poetry Competition, 2016, and published in competition anthology