Mermaid stands on her tail
and plays violin
first chair, in the
Nashville Symphony Orchestra
By special arrangement
she slides into a tank of seawater
between solos
She has such a light touch
the critics say
Her touch is full of air
free of water weight
Her instrument
a Stradivarius
worth a quarter-million dollars
artfully cover her breasts
as she slides the bow
In the audience country singers
still in their cowboy hats
despite glares from the well-coiffed women
behind them
and sailors in the hall too
one with an unlit cigar chomped between
yellowed dentures
wonder:
But how does she spread her legs
for sex?
* * * * *
Mitch Grabois was born in the Bronx and now lives in Denver. His short fiction and poetry appears (or will appear) in over a hundred literary magazines, most recently The T.J. Eckleberg Review, Memoir Journal, Out of Our and The Blue Hour. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story “Purple Heart” published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, published by Xavier Vargas E-ditions, is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. His submissions to Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure can be found here.
Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure 
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