The Mermaids and the May Flowers

by Pandora Peoples

Where the sighing of mermaids
turns into the calls of sirens,
a World War II veteran
lingers over a shoebox of memories,
his heavy footsteps in the attic
and the smell of cigarettes
give his whereabouts away

A tree branch in the backyard
splits from the trunk,
sacrificing itself to be used as a modern temple,
sweat lodge, or Fort Apache,
depending on the configuration of rocks
around the Druid marriage tree

The ghostly soldier stoops over his wife's empty flower bed,
and a single rose bush
seems to have special meaning for him,
when a child's toy truck appears at its base
under wild winter blossoms,
chaos like bitter regrets flies through the kitchen
among a group of gathered friends,
"I guess some people don't know how to let go"
"So you do it for them"
"Yeah, bury the shoebox."

The sailors and sea captains
and their wives may be wearing Pats jackets now,
but they can still catch a bullet with their teeth,
thick ankles like tree roots
stretch into white tennis shoes
striking punching bags with roundhouse kicks
like beasts,
like innkeepers who know how to keep bar flies in line,
before there was the wild west
there was Provincetown

Curvy forearms are balletic
with heavy wet blankets
on the clothes line in the crisp winter sunshine,
there's no such thing as a missed opportunity,
everything has more value on an island,
these sassy broads are the great-granddaughters
of merchants after all

There's always a curio cabinet
with found shells and matrioshkas
and little potato-faced dolls
with missing eyes on porcelain faces
in someone's house,
historical society bookshelves are full of stories
of widows who shorn sheep and slaughtered chickens
before sun-up on Sundays

No one gets gloomy about the yellow-green cemeteries
with lichen-covered gravestones,
in fact they are a source of pride
in the eyes and upturned mouths of locals,
red and blue flowers and American flags
are offered to strangers' tombs,
dotting the web of tangled streets
that course through the small cities
like the veins of prancing show ponies
in small town parades