Marian Calabro
Empty Storefronts

Empty storefronts, many more than last year.
One location seems just plain jinxed. Nothing
Lasts-not the bar, pizza parlor, diner.
Others businesses victims of success
The landlord's greed sends the owner packing.
All sad news for walkers. Fewer windows
To shop in. Fewer places to reach on
Foot. I confront my reflection in a
Smooth sheet of glass. Move on. Empty storefronts,
Canaries in the cave of a culture
Kept alive on shopping. Stores, now showrooms
For items e-bought for a penny less.
Shops shutter. I shudder. Bad sign. No signs.
Main Street, a codger with a toothless grin.

Mermaid

after a painting by Rigaud Benoit, Haiti, 1911-86

The mermaid rides on the boat.
The boat curves on the sea.
The boat is a fish and not a fish.
The mermaid is a fish and not a fish.
Alike, yet with different heads.

Will they be attracted when young,
Then grow apart?
The like parts peeling away
cleanly from the unalike,
like a fish fileted at the table
by an experienced waiter?
Or messily, with bits of one body
sticking to the other
and bones swallowed
despite best efforts to spit them out?

Plenty of fish in the sea,
as the mermaid will notice
when she shifts her eyes
from the horizon. Why, a swordfish
is swimming her way right now.
The stern of the boat is a drum to beat on.
The mermaid carries a tamborine.
For now they pulse in tandem.
The rocks at the edge of the cove
are molars. A masted ship
with a foreign flag hovers just beyond.

_ _

Marian Calabro is the author of The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party and other history books for teenagers and adults. Her poetry has appeared in the annual William Carlos Williams Red Wheelbarrow anthologies and other journals. Certified in the Amherst Writers & Artists method, Marian leads creative writing workshops in community education settings. By day she is president of a business book publishing house, CorporateHistory.net. She holds a BA in English Literature and Theater from Rutgers College.

>> Back to Issue 18, 2015