The Mermaid Laughs
She rises on a crest of silver,
hair spilling stars across the tide.
Every wave is her ribbon,
every ripple sings her name.

Her tail flashes like sunrise caught in water,
a promise painted in turquoise and flame.
She twirls with dolphins,
dances with gulls,
her joy too wide to fit the horizon.

She hums, and the sea hums back—
a chorus of whales,
a lullaby for coral,
a hymn that turns the salt air sweet.

No shipwreck clings to her ankles,
no sorrow hides in her song—
only the laughter of tides
and the kiss of a thousand shells
rattling their applause beneath her.

She gathers pearls in her palms,
gifts them to the currents,
lets them tumble like wishes
into the endless blue.

I watch from the shore,
my toes in wet sand,
and when her eyes catch mine
I swear the sea itself
is asking me to dream—

to believe in the shimmer of impossible things,
to know that joy can take any shape,
even a girl with a tail of flame
laughing her way across the waves.