We Could Be Merpeople (Just For One Day)

When our pens fail take me with you to the canal,
I will tell you where I hid the tails a fin secret
for just such an occasion when we were at an low ebb
we will make beds of discarded shopping trollies
bouncy balls will be our erratic pearls
wear crisp packet tiaras and beer can finery,
we will sing haunting songs under bridges
taking the rattle of train tracks as our bass
make flutes from bent piping
lure those who are lost to join us
with our beautiful off key music
and as the sun sets we will shake off the fading scales
clamber back to land on unsteady feet

Anna Percy, Manchester based poet/events organiser/workshop facilitator, has been writing poetry for performance and publication for a decade. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester, is part of Stirred Poetry, a feminist collective. Her first full length collection was published by Flapjack in 2013: Livid Among the Ghostings. The first film she saw at the cinema was The Little Mermaid and her lifelong obsession with Bowie leaks into poems.