Napowrimo #2

This is seriously unfinished, but I wanted to make sure I posted something. I am thinking of continuing this poem, connecting the idea of the speaker as a sea monster to the Andromeda story -- to have her learn that her place in this world isn't one of the destroyer, the monster, but one of a "good" girl, a princess, a damsel. So I have a little work to do here yet! Thinking how I can incorporate that better... But here's what I came up with so far:

Elk Hart Lake, Early Autumn

My father brought me there when I was six

To practice swimming. It was August,

The endless summer fading into dusk.

I spent the day there, no longer a little girl,

but a sea monster, seaweed clinging

to my skin, mud between my toes, and just my eyes

 above the surface,  searching the rocky shoreline

for my next victim, a grasshopper who leapt

too close, a couple fire ants that I could strand

on a leaf and send to sea, an autumn dandelion

growing on the edge that I could pluck

and toss into the placid lake, watch float

into the open water or sink into the mud.

I was lord over the minnows, scooping

One or two up in my hot pink pale,

Pondering their fate – to dump them out

At land or sea? At dusk, the lifeguard

blew his whistle, called me home

to the shore, where I’d return to being small,

my tiny hand swallowed by my father’s

as he tugged me home. Why can’t we stay

all night, I’d ask, my voice all but drowned out

by the cricket chorus all around us. Girl,

haven’t you heard? Sea monsters lurk

in those waters all night. He pointed to the stars,

and on the way home, told me the story

about the girl in the sky, Andromeda,

chained to the shore, awaiting her fate

to be rescued, saved, and swallowed.