I Found You at the Bottom of the Ocean

by Joyce Nancy

I found you at the bottom of the ocean
swimming circles, tangled in nets
other people had cast off. I wanted a home
inside the scales of your mermaid skin,
beside the weightless sway of your body
against the tide, so free
under the godless sky.
 
When I pulled you ashore
I was trying to rescue myself.
We have the same story - stayed quiet,
used echolocation.
 
You are the dark & endless sea,
muddled watercolors of a beach scene
or a bedroom, my hands in your hair
picking out refuse, sprawling
navy blue midnight, that shade of beautiful,
the inside of your eyelids.
 
Whether you say I can breathe underwater
or I am drowning, I believe you.
I found you under the sky in a bed made of ocean,
the place I was born. We sank separate
in the same sea for many years, until one day
I found you and knew.