Guys Like Me are Mad for Mermaid Meat*

Buried deep in my subconscious are recollections of what must have been a torrid love affair with a mermaid.

My gustatory passion for creatures who spend their lives in the sea betrays that obscure secret, hidden beneath waves of recall that pound my psyche with fresh shards of aquatic memories; reminiscences scattered among seaweed and algae on a wish-laden beach.

This deep, almost mystical, affection for seafood can be explained only as overt evidence of a covert dalliance with a luscious mermaid who introduced me to the edible opulence of the ocean. What other realistic explanation can there possibly be?

I can only imagine the sensual experiences etched into my subconscious mind as a result of that ferocious fling with that mermaid, that goddess of the sea, that creature so beguiling and alluring as to conquer my hedonistic desires and turn them into her own.  All I have left, now, is my steamy sentiment for scallops, my feelings for fish, the seductiveness of shrimp, and the magnetism of mussels. That long-forgotten emotional conflagration of coastal combustibles brought to the surface by that magnificent mermaid explains my gustatory passion for creatures who spend their lives in the sea.

The title gives homage to a line from Leonard Cohen’s Jazz Police: “Guys like me are mad for turtle meat.”