“The surface of the water remained calm; only the moon’s
half face stared steadily back up at her.”
“The Nixie in the Pond,” Grimm’s Fairy Tales

What do you want from me?
Why do I need to comb

Power of this black hair,
Power of this metal voice,

And play the flute, or spin
At the edge of your drowning home?

Power of this black hair,
Power of this metal voice,

I am not the same.
I have turned hard as a toad.

Power of this black hair,

I’ll raise him back alive
Out of your swimming air.

Power of this metal voice,

I will only be a wife again
At the end of a hard, equal road.

Power of this black hair,
Power of this metal voice,

Nixie, I can send
A song down through the water.

(It will reach your home).

(I have been your daughter.)

First published in The Poet’s Grimm, edited by Jeanne Beaumont. Story Line Press, 2003.