Landfall 205, Autumn 2003

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Her bones are at the bottom of the ocean

They are very quiet

Beautiful white bones with sandy hair stretching out into infinity

Her real hair is gone

Strand by dandelion strand it floated away

There was a time

When translucent fish nibbled on her aqua eyes

And an eel wrapped himself around her long brown leg – still soft and warm

He thought it was his mother

Until gradually

Bit by bit

Daryl Hannah disappeared

All that gorgeous flesh spent at sea

The tide going out on her career

Hours of B-grade films unravelling

They buried her with her tail

the one she wore in Splash

It’s rubbery orange spine lay over her like a blanket before finally drifting off

Tumbling through the waves, as rich as caviar

Once a boy spotted it and told his father he had seen a mermaid.