Poem on Sunday: John Evans of Llandrillo yn Rhos

Imogen Clout

He’d fathomed there was something strange
as the net came in – a shift,
the weight all wrong. He guessed a seal,
or porpoise, something
that would fetch a price – toys
for the children, a dress-length
for his wife.

And then it rose
dripping and shrieking, gull cries
to rend his heart.

Hairs clotted
the mesh, copper and gold wire
and under, was it skin or scales?
Shimmer and slick, the bloom on
buried glass. Eyes blurred,
he heaved it on the deck.

He saw her fingers then
curved through the net – her face
with two green pools of eyes, salt wet
with fear.

Kneeling he unravelled
smelt the brine and tang, felt her shagreen
muscles tense and glimpsed at last
her fabled breasts, seductive curves
to call men to their doom.

What price
for such a one? The fairground showmen
with their greedy gold lined up.
He thought of feather beds
and fires, and salves to ease
his cracking hands.

‘Mercy, oh set me free.’ Her thin voice
begged. ‘Would you cut your daughter
from her home? Oh, show me pity,
gentle man.’ Her tears fell like pearls.

The visions slipped, he took her in his arms.
The net had cut her, coral beads
fell on the boards. ‘One kiss?’
he asked. Her mouth was kelp and prawn
beneath his lips, wild and glassy cold.

‘Go well.’ He lifted her, her tail kicked
and the waves took her, swallowing
their own.

Fishermen’s tales, he thought.
The one that got away. They’ll all
scoff if I breathe a word, scorn the fool
who chucked a fortune back. But in the net
her hairs were golden wires, and scattered
pearls and coral beads were nestled in its loops.

PART II

He hung one pearl in his ear, for luck
and had the rest strung for his wife –
her Sunday best. Years passed,
the moons and tides rolled on,
fish filled his nets, his children throve.

A mother-of-pearl dawn –
he sailed in gentle winds out on the bay.
The net skeined out. A screech!
A scrabbling at the hull. She rises
from the swell, green-gold, her hair
streams wild. Her small hands grasp
the rudder.

‘I come to save you,
as you once saved me. Flee, flee
the gathering storm. Its fury spares
no boat or man.’ His outstretched hand
touches her shoulder, feels its icy gloss –
the sudden memory within his arms,
the hollowing out of loss, the stab of grief.
He grabs – but she has slipped, and the boat turns
as though she’s got a whale to shove.
Something clatters on the deck – her comb.

He spares no sail, and races for the shore
as at his back the purple clouds amass.

The haven opens as the wind arrives
smashing the waves to hills.

On the quay
John kneels in prayer, a thankful man
who knows of mercy’s reciprocity.
His wife and children clasp him close,
their horrid visions of the poorhouse gone.
They bar the door against the wind and rain.

Later, in the sweet cave of the counterpane
he tells his wife the tale, and wraps
her tender fingers round the mermaid’s comb.