Kiss You – A Mermaid Sonnet by Kristin Garth

Kiss You

Surrounded, silver thundercloud, you cringe

in cotton, clammy bedsheets, cowed until

your chin arises to her clap.  Eyelids unhinge

while sirens slap lewd flukes, bare grayed useless gills

cumulonimbus mermaid ghosts chase to

bedpost, you, pine against spine, shoulder blades,

flesh ring, scales, breasts, inside, afraid.  Kiss you,

perchance I taste his lips. Remake to jade

white eyes — pink, fingertips. Not mottled smoke

soft stroking cheeks amidst a floating tittering,

salacious squeaks.  Phantasmic mouth provokes

your diaphanous reawakening —

though it was not you she came to claim,

when thunderclaps again, it speaks her name.

Author’s notes

Flutter: A Southern Gothic Fever Dream is the story of Sylvia Dandridge, a 16-year-old dying of scarlet fever in 1883 Pensacola.  Beset by fever dreams, she concocts a universe on the grounds of Longleaf Estate that bequeaths her progeny (lemon tree foundlings), drama (rabid swans and vengeful mermaid ghosts) and romance (a teenage seeming demon named Étienne).

In “Kiss You” we meet the spectral mermaid queen Thora.  The grey transparent Thora craves colouring, the magic blossoming kiss of Étienne.  Since he won’t bequeath it, she decides that perhaps Sylvia still has some of his magic on her lips.

Read more sonnets from Flutter: A Souther Gothic Fever Dream on Mookychick – just click the link.

About Kristin Garth

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker.  Her poetry has stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five:2: One, Former Cactus, Occulum & many more.  She has six chapbooks including Shakespeare for Sociopaths (Hedgehog Poetry Press), Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press March 2019) and The Legend of the Were Mer (Thirty West Publishing House March 2019). Her full length Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir collection is forthcoming in April 2019 (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), and she has a fantasy collaborative full length A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony collection forthcoming in June (Rhythm & Bones Lit). Flutter (TwistiT Press) is set to be published in January 2020. 

Follow her on Twitter:  (@lolaandjolie), and her website kristingarth.com