Skin of the Sea

Simi waits in the water beneath a ship, both yearning to slip above and feel the sun and sink down into the heavy darkness of the sea. A badly beaten woman is tossed from the ship, and Simi claims the body before the sharks can. The ship is an òyìnbó slave ship, and Simi is a Mami Wata, a Black mermaid who collects the souls of the dead to return them to the creator, Olodumare. As Simi guides the woman’s soul from her body, she sees glimpses of the woman’s life as a child, wife, and mother, feeling the joy of that time. Mimi stores the soul in her sapphire necklace and releases the body, and as she retreats, her “tears join the salt of the sea” (5).

Simi is one of seven Mami Wata created by Yemoja, orisa of the sea, and Simi travels toward Yemoja’s island so the goddess can help bless the soul. She cannot summon Yemoja for another day, but she wishes to go early so she can transform into her human self, bask in the sun, and remember her life before becoming a Mami Wata. On the way, she encounters