Our date by the sea, the restaurant (We are merely a temporary us,) a distraction from what is at last us.

You in your slacks, shirt, tie (tempted, separated by a callous hand of fate), not yet, not yet. Not now, you whisper.

I in my pearls and black velvet,(side by side we remain) striding in the beach. My high heels are

sinking into sand, (painful, we know this ending tale) and I remember the way, you know how my mind goes,

of blinding pain, and like Anderson’s mermaid I am mute (joking, laughing, loving, and internally maimed), though we are

laughing at the follies of Romans and Greeks (and Ulysses and Poseidon’s strife have nothing on this), the vanity of them,

I imagine for once those black heels thrown to sea (sailing to our own worlds, to part), a paltry mortal offering

to a jealous sea-witch(god, how we wish for the inevitable) to be spared in this final moment, our moment, to be.

That happily (never.)ever-after.