Mercy

by Mykel Mogg

Before I explain to you, understand:

I am a sea queen with
gray hair and metallic nails,
ripping oysters and pearls apart with my fabled
fangs. I am a sussurus at the bottom
of a well, giving off heat and
tectonic tension. I used to be a woman
but now I am too slippery to pin down.
I am a poultice of
underevolved life, of kelp and bacteria.

Before I explain to you, understand:

Fish do not feel pain
fish do not mercy.

Before I explain to you, understand:

She was a young thing.
No, I mean it, she was a young thing,
so young she wasn’t human. Atavistic young thing.
So young her tail still swept the floor.
So young she didn’t understand when I

Her eyes were shameless,
aimlessly hungry.
So young she didn’t understand when I

unlatched my jaw and hid her in the back of my throat