Her Glum Face in Copenhagen Harbor by Lauren Moore
In Danish havfrue does not mean mermaid but half-woman.
It’s better to be seafoam than to be half a woman.
The images on posters and bus ads create an illusion of size
and substance. In fact she is only four feet tall, less than a woman,
slumped on the little rock, bronze arm curved over modest belly.
Her head was stolen in 1964. With a new one, is she the same woman?
Twenty years later, someone sawed off her arm but returned it the next day.
Whether hurt, whole, degraded, grateful—she is a silent woman
facing the sea, head turned from the crowd, spine curved,
knees bent. Protected by patina, an immortal woman.