I saw an erotic mermaid in the dairy aisle at Safeway.

She looked at me.

There was a puddle underneath her, right next to the 2% milk.

Are you for real? I called.

She flinched – she turned.

A fresh sea-wind brushed my nostrils.

Well, are you?

Her mouth was a succulent frown.

Then – a voice – a hollow, sweeping siren bounced around the tiles.

Cleanup, it said.

Cleanup in aisle 2.

Neither of us knew what it meant. Oh, mermaid!

Her skin was translucent.

Her eyes were an English garden.

I stuttered, I looked away and I sighed,

because then she was gone, as if she had never been.