The Mermaid of Zennor, by Julia Duke

The Mermaid of Zennor, by John Reinhard Weguelin (England) 1900

The Mermaid of Zennor

They make them so unforgiving, these pews,
and so, well, functional. A little moulding, perhaps,
a creature, myth or biblical motif would be nice.
 
And how’s a girl to arrange herself? That’s the
sting in the tail; the bottom line. The Church fathers
could give a little more thought to the shape of things.
 
I would rather not dwell upon their singing,
those mournful and discordant dirges that ensued.
How could I help but upstage them?
 
My visits were few; the story has been embellished.
I was never taken with liturgy or ancient myth,
except one about a big fish swallowing a man.
 
It was Mathey all along. One of the gentle folk,
his music washed over me like the waves of the sea
and I recognised him for a kindred spirit.
 
He loved me for my voice though I was finely dressed,
in proper Sunday rigout. It was only later,
when I enticed him home, that he saw my other charms.
 
It’s nice to have a voice. Never one to persuade
a man by flaunting myself, I prefer to be taken
seriously. After all, the job is for life. I believe that.
 
They still remember me, how one night I begged their help.
An anchor caught itself against my door; I tried to thank them
but they rushed into the night, fearing themselves cursed.
 
A touching gesture, carving that pew for my remembrance,
where they like to think I sat to enjoy their sweet singing
of a Sunday. Without a cushion, no chance of that.
 
Julia Duke
 ​
This poem was previously published at The Dawntreader and Poetry Wivenhoe.

Julia Duke loves to experiment, with poetry, her first love, and with nature writing, memoir and a recent project on identity. Currently living in Suffolk, U.K., after fifteen years in the Netherlands and six on the beautiful west coast of Wales, she has found her inspiration in landscape and her fellow humans, from diverse artworks and quirky ideas. Her poems and articles are published in London Grip, Dreich,Obsessed with Pipework and various other anthologies and magazines. Conversations, her first poetry pamphlet, is published by Dempsey & Windle (2021) and tackles the knotty problem of relationships.