I remember a time when I almost caught a siren. I grew up on Rainbow Lake in Hillsborough County, Florida. The lake was big enough to hide its other side, but small enough to row around in an afternoon. We had a floating dock that came loose from its anchors and beached halfway up the shore. 
Enough of it poked out into the water for me to dangle my feet from its astroturf surface. From this perch, I spent hours watching frogs, fish and insects living between the lemon bacopa and pennywort. There were many kinds of minnows and if you left your feet in the water, they’d nibble and tickle the skin between your toes. Every once in a long while I’d see the torpedo grass bending slightly back and forth. This was the mark of a musk turtle pushing his way through the shallows, sweeping his head back and forth looking for morsels. Occasionally he’d poke his triangular snout out for a breath.
Slowly did the salamander
creep up to my feet
cuddling up around them
lying there to sleep.
Never did I dare disturb him
lest he should awake
for he lay there softly
and dreamily he spake.
Spake he of such distant things
of reed and willow banks
of sodden knotted fallen logs
and nooks and crannies dank.
-Jason Robertshaw, age 13
One day a smooth, black ribbon swam towards me. It was a siren, an eel-like salamander as long as my arm and as dark as the murky bottom. It was a rare sight. I’d seen finger-sized ones squirm out of the bog moss when cleaning the lakeside. But never one this big. In that moment between fear and familiarity, I almost pulled my legs up. I am glad I didn’t, because slowly, sinuously, it swam up to my feet. It did not seem to sense me. I sat mesmerized, observing its feathery gills, its ridiculously little front legs, its almost vestigial eyes. Eventually it nuzzled past me, snaking its way towards the neighbor’s chain link fence that jutted into the lake, half-submerged, next to the dock. I leapt after it. That was a mistake. I wanted to catch it and keep it and watch it a little longer. But in that instant I learned what is meant by the expression “as slippery as an eel.” I was trying to catch lightning. One moment my hands were around it; then a twist, a flick, and it was gone. It was a muscle made of mucus. A long time would pass before I saw another siren that size again. Before that could happen, I would have to find a water snake with two tails. But that’s a story for another time.