A mermaid from the water

Running rest-day ...

... and here's a favourite of mine, taken from the pictured 1994 Gerard Woodward volume:


THE SECRET BATHROOM

I have learnt the names of the rooms,
But what is this one called,
The one whose door is locked?

Like the kitchen it contains water,
I can hear it.
But, I suspect, no knives.

Is it another bedroom?
If so, who sleeps in it?
We are all counted for

In this house
And I would fear a stranger
Plumping up unknown pillows.

If it is a living room
Why is it locked?
To live needs no secrecy,

Just chairs and ornaments.
I cannot remember if this door
Has even been open.

Then the person in there
Must be starving
To death.

It sounds enormous
The way it echoes,
Worse than a church.

Perhaps it is a door
To the outside, upstairs,
Opening to a fall through trees.

But there is a lake in there
And someone swimming
In a hot, flowery summer.

And I notice that all
The walls, ceilings and floors
Of the house are flowing

With rivers as if all
Were melting as an igloo thaws
To a pool of liquid house.

But now I hear this woman's voice
Speaking like a mermaid from the water,
Reminding me how I was once a fish

In her lake, when she,
With her rope of blood,
Angled me out.