BACKYARD MERMAIDS: An Original Memoir Poem



Here’s another of my memoir poems from my unpublished collection A Home for the Seasons about the happy times I spent at the home of my maternal grandparents when I was young. This poem describes a hot summer day when my cousins Karen and Joyce and I ran through the sprinkler in my grandparents’ yard. (Note: Dzidzi was my grandfather.)


BACKYARD MERMAIDS
by Elaine Magliaro

An August afternoon,
the air hangs over us like a moist veil.
A cicada stings the silence.
Dzidzi turns on the sprinkler.
Thin ribbons of silver beads
stream upward, glisten in the sun.
We run back and forth through the tiny waterfall,
our bare feet squishing through wet grass,
liquid diamonds cooling our sunburned skin,
seaweed hair clinging to our heads and necks.
We are mermaids of the deep
and the sun, a giant topaz,
floats above us in a sea of sapphire blue.

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The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at Book Aunt this week.