The Emerald Tailed Mermaid Caught By A Better Man Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Once I came to your zoo- I was only a little boy,
But I guess I wanted to pet you;
But you are already, already made,
A celebrity tailed in a zoetropic aquatic glade-
I bit my tongue and held my breath,
And you wagged your tail, and it did the rest-
Even the centipedes sizzled, and the paciderms sneezed,
And even the longest of husbands became wobbly
Kneed:
You were with the pythons, the slappy otters,
The amphibians lay in your muddy vanity: I swear I came
There ever day and never once noticed the beautiful fans
Of the female peacocks under the mangroves:
I just thought of you, as you swam, the last thing not extinct
Since from the conquistadors;
And you waved your auburn hair like an auburn fan,
And you waved your auburn hair like an auburn fan,
You slipped tinny minnows between your bright red lips
And stared and stared- You must have been contemplating
The waves of your stolen land,
Never once engorging on me pressed against the sheet glass
With a balloon, ever grateful that some greater man
Had captured you and tamed you in a tiny pool in this
Modern land- So I forgot about cars and airplanes and movie
Theatres, and was just glad that I had come across you,
The emerald tailed mermaid caught by a better man.