Ice Cream

If I lived in a submarine, I bet I would eat a lot of ice cream.
My grandmother lived in a submarine, oh,
maybe 49 years ago from yesterday, and I bet she met a lot of mermaids.

You can tell by her teeth,
how many mermaids she’s met.
Do they have sirens under the sea? The screaming kind.
She doesn’t know. It would taste cold, probably.

The ice cream, I mean.
If I wasn’t born more than once,
I would’ve treated my mother better.

When you love someone enough to drown in a car seat,
you end up drowning in a car seat. Which is to say: the regret of winter
is that mermaids can’t swim in ice sheets. It tastes cold.

His mouth, I mean.
Like menthol cigarettes do in the morning time
that everyone calls night. He called me one night
because he thought he was dying.
Xanax and piano keys do that.

I heard the sirens scream and the only thing shaking was me.
I wasn’t scared or anything. I don’t get scared;
my grandmother lived in a submarine and I have her blood.

Right?
There has to be a less ugly way to say
I want to treat you better without admitting to it.
Hey, don’t go thinking I still drown in car seats.
I can swim fine, even inside a submarine.

I mean, just yesterday, I became a mermaid.