Chapin City Blues

But I prefer to remember La Sirena
back when her breasts were free
of the seashells she now holds
to cover them in water so blue
cold, her scales so red,
her name clung to the tongue
like dulce de leche.

Jacob Saenz is the author of the 2018 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize collection, Throwing the Crown. His poetry has appeared in Pinwheel and Poetry, which featured this poem in their November 2012 issue.