One should always have a secret life.
Great Aunt Edna always wore
her silvery hair tight in a bun—
at night she unpinned,
and the glistening waves
came crashing to her waist.
I liked to watch
“prim and put-together”
transform to little mermaid,
sitting at the gilded vanity,
sliding her tortoise shell comb
through the strands.
Someday, my little-girl-self
would grow into the kind of woman
who could choose if —and when—
to let loose the wild seas.
Ann Weil is the author of Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman (Yellow Arrow Publishing, 2023) and Blue Dog Road Trip (Gnashing Teeth Publishing, October 2024). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and appears in Pedestal Magazine, DMQ Review, Maudlin House, 3Elements Review, Okay Donkey, SWWIM Every Day, The Shore, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor, MI, and Key West, FL.