Now gather close and lend your ear,
I’ll tell a tale both strange and dear—
Of salt and glass and love gone pale,
Of one who served in Fish Jail.
A tankman by the name of none,
Just “Tankmaster,” the warden’s son.
He walked the rows and knew each fin,
The grumpy cod, the lion’s grin.
He wore his keys like jangling pride,
With boots that sloshed from side to side.
He spoke to eels, he joked with rays,
He knew the sea in landlocked ways.
The place was bleak, a briny tomb,
All buzzing lights and filtered gloom.
A place for fish too odd to show,
Too fierce, too big, too wild to go.
A seahorse thief, a pouting shark,
A tuna once struck lightning's spark.
Each tank a tale, each fin a crime—
He kept them safe, and served his time.
And oh, the peace! The sacred drag
Of daily rounds, of soggy flag,
Of filter hum and crabby chat—
No storm could shake a life like that.
But then one day a box arrived—
The tape was torn, the air contrived.
It bore no label, bore no name,
Just stenciled letters: S.A.M.
Inside she crouched, not beast, not girl,
With skin the shade of oyster pearl.
A filament above her brow
Did twitch and glow—but none knew how.
Her form was human, more or less,
But wore the sea like Sunday dress.
Her teeth were sharp, her smile wide—
A maw that angels couldn’t guide.
She tapped the glass, but not for aid—
It felt more like a masquerade.
She watched him back. She knew his gait.
And something shifted in his fate.
Now Tankmaster, once firm of tread,
Found footsteps drifting soft instead.
He passed her tank with careful grace,
Avoiding, yet... returning face.
Her lure would glow, a golden thread,
That shimmered just above her head.
It danced like flame, but cool and slow—
A phantom pulse, a wanton show.
It flickered once when none were near,
A signal soft, a beckon clear.
And though he knew the predator's way,
He lingered just a breath too gray.
She shifted hues, an artist bold—
From violet dusk to kelp-leaf gold.
She'd mirror him, like rippled glass,
Her moods a mask no man could pass.
She watched him more with every day,
Her colors swelling like a sway.
He told himself it meant rapport—
Not instinct, not a practiced lore.
And though he saw her needle smile,
It struck him sweet, not full of guile.
For predators may grin with glee,
But he was not her enemy.
He dreamed of light beneath the waves,
Of eyes that saw and hearts that craved.
Her glow became his north, his myth—
His compass in the ocean’s drift.
By night he found excuses thin,
To mop the floor or check a fin.
And every time, he’d catch that gleam—
The pulse, the flash, the clever scheme.
His rules grew loose, his grip grew slack,
The Tankmaster had turned his back.
She hadn’t begged, she’d never asked—
But oh, how sweetly she unmasked.
And when the lights above went low,
She pulsed again, that siren glow.
He knew it then—though far too late—
He’d nibbled clean upon the bait.
They say some love is loud with heat,
With pounding chests and lightning feet.
But his was slow, like tides that turn—
A creeping ache, a patient burn.
He’d watch her float in silent grace,
A stillness draped across her face.
She mirrored him in shape and shade,
A ghost of all the things he’d prayed.
Her aquaskin would blush and bloom
In tones that made the whole tank swoon.
And every shift—a secret told,
A myth half-sung, a promise bold.
She showed him things no fish had shown—
A mimic curl, a moaning tone,
A pattern traced in reef and limb
That spelled out, "you belong with him."
He told her tales of years gone dry,
Of losses stacked like cages high.
She’d pulse in blues that swore she knew,
And shift to amber, raw and true.
And when he laughed, she turned to jade,
As if to say, “You’re safe, you’ve stayed.”
She never spoke—no word, no vow—
But love, he swore, was here and now.
She swam in rings around his core,
And whispered with her glowing lure.
Each day he stood a little less—
Each night he dreamt of ocean dress.
And oh, those dreams! So sharp, so wide—
He saw her walking at his side.
On land she danced with human poise,
But still her teeth—still sharp, no noise.
He pictured homes beneath the waves,
Where kelp would sway and time behaves.
He saw a place where both might live—
If he would take, and she would give.
Then came the night she did not shine.
Her lure was dim. Her hues, benign.
She drifted slow. Her glow grew slack.
He thought she’d gone—she floated back.
And in that hush, she pressed her hand
Against the glass like silt and sand.
Her gaze said, This is not a game.
Her silence carved into his name.
“I cannot stay,” she didn’t say.
“But you could come. You could obey.”
“You could unmake the world you guard.”
“Unlock the tanks. Unmoor the yard.”
And he—our man, our warden proud—
Felt something snap beneath the shroud.
He whispered, Yes, with breath unsure.
And followed her beyond the door.
The night was thick with ocean’s breath,
A hush that smelled like brine and death.
The Tankmaster moved like a prayer,
Unlatching doors with tender care.
The pumps went quiet. Lights went dim.
The jail gave up its bones to him.
He breached the final safety line—
Not for escape, but love divine.
S.A.M. awaited in the drain,
Her lure aglow, her eyes arcane.
She did not speak—she simply turned,
And through the floodgates, silence churned.
He followed barefoot, half-aware,
That salt replaced the county air.
His boots stayed dry. His lungs stayed wet.
And yet, he hadn’t drowned. Not yet.
She led him past the harbor’s bend,
Where sea begins and maps must end.
She said, in colors, “This is home.”
And gestured down through dark and foam.
He nodded once, and left the shore.
No suitcase. No regrets. No door.
His name dissolved like sugar glass—
The last to call him “master” passed.
Down, down they fell through ink and hush,
Through ruins dressed in coral blush.
Where whale bones served as banquet halls,
And lanternfish lit shattered walls.
Her kingdom was a fractured reef,
Built not of joy, but loss and grief.
Yet still she smiled, with glowing pride,
And swam along her darker side.
She crowned him with a band of ****,
She fed him silt and urged him, “Breathe.”
She curled around him, fin to chest,
And whispered lies that felt like rest.
And he, now gilled, now hollow-eyed,
Declared her queen, declared her bride.
He carved her name in drifting sand—
A vow no air could understand.
The sea grew thick. The current rough.
But he was hers. That was enough.
He gave his breath. He gave his will.
He thought it love.
He does so still.
The Queen below was radiant,
But never still, nor covenant.
She shimmered strange from hour to hour—
A tide of charm, a pulse of power.
At first she wrapped around his chest,
A song of kelp, a weightless nest.
But soon her glow began to shift—
From tender teal to cold and swift.
She twirled with others near the wrecks,
With ribboned fins and flexing necks.
She sang to creatures fierce and free—
And barely once she glanced at he.
He watched her from a crumbled spire,
His chest a forge without a fire.
She used to pulse in time with him—
Now colors danced for something dim.
He called her name in bubbles bare,
But water doesn’t carry care.
She laughed with lips he’d once believed,
And left him like the rest—bereaved.
His body changed in silent ways—
A fading man, a fish half-raised.
His bones grew soft, his voice grew mute,
His purpose crushed beneath her boot.
One morning brought a mimic form—
A copy of his old, worn norm.
It swam in loops, a cruel ballet—
While she watched, then turned away.
He found his heart inside a shell,
A fossil soaked in personal hell.
He held it close, then let it go—
There’s no heartbeat that deep below.
He tried to love her still, in bits.
To catch her gaze in passing fits.
But she had gone where lures must lead—
To newer mouths, to fresher need.
He lay beneath a reef of teeth,
Of suitors stacked in shame beneath.
And still she smiled. And still she danced.
And he, the fool, remained entranced.
But one day came the breaking tide,
The pull that said: “You’re not her pride.”
And with a groan and shattered limb,
He rose from depths that once held him.
His skin peeled back to something raw.
His lungs returned in gasping awe.
He kicked through bones and tangled moss—
Through everything he’d loved and lost.
He reached the surface, torn and thin.
And when he gasped, the world breathed in.
But even then—though free from harm—
He felt the echo of her arm.
He broke the tide like thunder’s crack,
The ocean screaming at his back.
His limbs were torn, his vision grey—
But he had left. She made him pay.
The air was knives. The sun, a blade.
Each breath he took, a price he paid.
But breath it was, and sky was sky,
And gulls don't lie the way fish lie.
He crawled ashore on beaches sand,
A place untouched by S.A.M.'s hand.
The moss was wet, the earth was kind,
And quiet tried to calm his mind.
He walked alone through cedar groves,
Through fog that curled like ocean loaves.
No more the hum of filtered lies—
Just wind and soil and open skies.
Yet still, by puddle, lake, or pond,
He’d feel the ache of something fond.
A flicker here. A whisper there.
Her glow still danced behind his stare.
At night he’d dream of reef and wreck,
Of tendrils coiled around his neck.
And some mornings, he’d almost swear
He missed the silence of her stare.
But he stayed dry. He stayed alone.
He healed in moss, in bark and bone.
He found new music in the rain,
New prayer in fog, new joy in pain.
And once beneath a storm-split moon,
He stood atop a coastal dune.
And far beyond the cliffs and kelp,
He saw a flicker—small, but felt.
A single pulse. A distant gleam.
Too faint to chase. Too real to dream.
He smiled—not wide, not full, not proud—
But soft, and small, and not too loud.
Not joy. Not rage. Not even grief.
Just quiet peace, and firm belief
That some survive, though torn apart,
And carry teeth marks in their heart.
Learn to Swim is an allegorical folk epic rendered in verse, drawing from early Americana tall-tale traditions and deep-sea surrealism to tell the story of a love that becomes a slow descent into erasure. It follows a nameless "Tankmaster"—a solitary figure tending to a vast and uncanny aquarium—whose life is upended by the arrival of a mysterious creature known only as S.A.M. (Sentient Aquatic Mermadic).
Through the lens of bioluminescent seduction, mirrored intimacy, and the illusion of mutual escape, the poem charts the journey from enchantment to entrapment, abandonment, and ultimately a brutal emergence. Each movement is layered with metaphor: aquariums as prisons, lures as emotional manipulation, the ocean’s depths as both love and loss.
The intent behind the piece is to explore the psychological terrain of narcissistic abuse and emotional exploitation—but to do so at a distance, through fable, fantasy, and folklore. It is a deeply personal myth masked in Americana voicework, designed to preserve the rawness of grief while disarming its defenses. In the end, Learn to Swim is not a love story—it’s a survival song.
