Mermaid

The memory of this poem has long been in my head, I read in once, a good 14 years ago, and the twin ronson butane lighters have been knocking about in my head since.

Mermaid
by Robert Lowell

1.
I have learned what I wanted from the mermaid
and her singeing conjunction of tail and grace.
Deficiency served her. What else could she do?
Failure keeps snapping up transcendence,
bubble and bullfrog boating on the surface,
belly lustily lagging three inches lowered--
the insatiable fiction of desire.
None swims with her and breathes the air.
A mermaid flattens soles and picks a trout,
knife and fork in chainsong at the spine,
weeps white rum undetectable from tears.
She kills more bottles than the ocean sinks,
and serves her winded lover's bones in brine,
nibbled at recess in the marathon.

3.
Our meetings are no longer like a screening;
I see the nose on my face is just a nose,
your bel occi grandi are just eyes
in the photo of you arranged as a figurehead
or mermaid on the prow of a Roman dory,
bright as the morning star or a blond starlet.
Our twin black and tin Ronson butane lighters
knock on the sheet, and what they are,
too many, and burned too many cigarettes. . . .
Night darkens without your necessary call,
it's time to turn your pictures to the wall;
your moon-eyes water and your nervous throat
gruffs my directive, "You must go now."
Contralto mermaid, and stone-deaf at will.

4.
I see you as a baby killer whale,
free to walk the seven seas for game,
warmhearted with an undercoat of ice,
a nerve-wrung back . . . all muscle, youth, intention,
and skill expended on a lunge or puncture--
hoisted now from conquests and salt sea
to flipper-flapper in a public tank,
big deal for Sunday children. . . . My blind love--
on the Via Veneto, a girl
counting windows in a glass cafe,
now frowning at her menu, now counting out
neanderthals flashed like shorebait on the walk. . . .
Your stamina as inside-right at school
spilled the topheavy boys, and keeps you pure.

5.
One wonders who would see and date you next,
and grapple for the danger of your hand.
Will money drown you? Poverty, though now
in fashion, debases women as much as wealth.
You use no scent, dab brow and lash with shoeblack,
willing to face the world without more face.
I've searched the rough black ocean for you,
and saw the turbulance drop dead for you,
always lovely, even for those who had you,
Rough Slitherer in your grotto of haphazard.
I lack manhood to finish the fishing trip.
Glad to escape the beguilement and the storm,
I thank the ocean that hides the fearful mermaid--
like God, I almost doubt if you exist.