"That girl's eyes loved gazing into water,
in her doubly delightful vision,
but he was still learning the liquid language
and there's danger and there's damage,
there's envy and derision,
when you love the ocean's daughter.

So he told this girl that of course he had
been in love once, but that girl had
turned out to be a mermaid and he
couldn't swim or even go overboard and
sink down to where her eggs were lying
like multitudinous, enticing pearls slowly
drifting away on the luminous white sand
at the bottom of the blue lagoon.

He didn't really like the water very much,
I guess... so anyway what this girl told me
was that after that he always, ironically,
had the blues, like a deep glinting reflection
in his eyes... like the distant echo of a
soprano saxophone in his ears...

The first time this girl met him, apparently,
he turned to her and said, "What did you
say?" and forced a smile politely to his lips,
his lips that would never kiss an earth-woman
or taste the flower-sweet air that floats through
her, although she may have any number of his
wistful, wondering children clinging to her skirts
while her tears flow endlessly back to the sea."