Reunion With My Mermaid Dolls

by Jennifer Fenn

A Pinterest page opens,
revealing toys from the eighties.
Sea Wees and Babies!
There you are, mother mermaids Coral and Merry
with your long red and brunette hair
and babies Corkie and Marina in your bonnets,
ready to float in bubble baths or wading pools
on your sponge lily pads.

Coral and Corkie!
You helped me not mind
getting soap in my eyes at bath time.
Time with you was my reward
for letting my mother rub shampoo in my hair
with her hard, bony fingers,
till the day you disappeared.
I never knew where you went.

Merry and Marina!
How I loved watching you float
on sun-sparkled waves in my plastic wading pool!
When it was time to get out,
you stayed with me as I dried off,
lying on a towel under the magnolia tree.
Each time I went back in the house,
I set you on the patio table, safe from the dog,
until she climbed up a chair
and chewed your fish tails anyway.
Did my mother throw you out?

Your painted smiles assure me
you’re safe now, away from mothers and dogs.
Look at you, lying on lily pads
in your Pinterest toy heaven!

Jennifer Fenn is an accounting assistant by day and a poet by night. Her poetry is published in seventeen journals, including Song of the San Joaquin, Tiger’s Eye, Time of Singing, Monterey Poetry Review, and The Orchards. She has self-published two chapbooks, Blessings and Song of the Katabatic Wind, as church fundraisers.

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