Little Mermaid Poem by gershon hepner

“I want to be like men, ” she begs,
and has to make the choice
to change her tail for two fine legs
but thus to lose her voice.
She cannot swim, without a tail,
and cruise the depths pelagic,
and silently she has to wail
her voice loss that is tragic.
But men admire how she looks,
her legs are quite terrific;
and shown in paparazzi books
Atlantic and Pacific.
She has no more a voice to tell
her stories of the ocean;
for she, like Orpheus, lives in hell,
sea-silence as her potion.


Daniel Gordis compares the voicelessness of the Americanized Jew to the taillessness of Hans Christian Andersen's little mermaid.

12//31/97