The seasoned salts of ancient history
included superstitions in their trade.
Encountering the buxom manatee,
they chanty-named the animal “mermaid.”

Were they by saline spray and fog so blind,
or by long voyaging did they forget?
They saw the attitude of womankind
in ocean-dwelling elephants. And yet…

Perhaps those legend men could really see
and sought by lore to leave a clue for all,
for here’s a waking rising manatee,
and if a song can name a walrus Paul,
then I declare the sea cow has to be
a mermaid musing in obesity.