by Jessica Hudson

after Cher’s 1990 film Mermaids


One of my daughters prefers to sleep underwater.
Before bed, she holds her breath for five seconds

short of the world record, stopwatch gripped
in her fist raised high above the bathwater.

I can’t watch. As the slitted lampshade ripples
yellow light over the blue walls and paper fishes,

she drifts off. We’re each determined to survive
in those places where we don’t belong. To settle

for change rather than slow-motion ourselves
into a settled life. In the kitchen, we bump hips

and bop our heads to Jimmy Soul. Eat stars
for dinner: fruity hors d’oeuvres slipping

down damp toothpicks. Our life is so much
better than a kiss. My older daughter defines

resolution as wish. This year I wish to be—
who knows? Cherished, I think, but cannot say

aloud because tonight I am a mermaid, blond
curls and glittering crown, my cardboard tail

strung to one wrist raised high so I can dance.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jessica Hudson (she/her) received her Creative Writing MFA from Northern Michigan University. Her work has been published in several literary magazines, and her first poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press. Jessica lives in Albuquerque, NM with an experimental artist and a black cat.