by Merry Speece
If I was a mermaid, and a tourist attraction, I'd be glad if someone gave me a headscarf.
Someone very devoted to Little Mermaid vandalism whines why her and not Big Ben? But what, I wonder, do Big Ben and Little Mermaid have in common?
Isn't she more like Manneken Pis, which has indeed been stolen but the last time a hundred years ago and after that recovery a barrier around the little boy was erected?
And now I'm thinking, when was the last time I saw a Piss on Bin Laden decal? Are people ashamed? I wonder at what point the decals started to come down.
And whatever happened to Piss Christ? Don't you kind of miss him?
Merry Speece has published two chapbooks of poetry and been a recipient of a state arts commission fellowship in prose. Her Sisters Grimke Book of Days, which one reviewer called a prose poem, was published in 2003 by Oasis Books (England).