The odd thing about this writing by Amy Gerstler in Bitter Angel: Poems is how scary it sounds to someone who has sailed across an ocean.

I have a fish’s tail, so I’m not qualified to love you.
But I do. Pale as an August sky, pale as flour milled
a thousand times, pale as the icebergs I have never seen,
and twice as numb–my skin is such a contrast to the rough
rocks I lie on, that from far away it looks like I’m a baby
riding a dinosaur. The turn of centuries or the turn
of a page means the same to me, little or nothing.
I have teeth in places you’d never suspect. Come. Kiss me
and die soon. I slap my tail in the shallows–which is to say
I appreciate nature. You see my sisters and me perched
on rocks and tiny island here and there for miles:
untangling our hair with our fingers, eating seaweed.

Late at night, with a bright moon over dark shimmery waters and a light enough breeze to just echo the “slap” of a tail meant to “appreciate nature”… you definitely can hear that Siren song. It’s both the worst and best kind of pretty.

As John F. Kennedy published in 1964…

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgement.