A mermaid plays

Wooden skeleton, broken back,
Fish for friends in desperate lack
Of light beneath the ocean waves
Where wake and crest are long forgot save
The memory of the moon's pull still
Threaded through a thousand krill
And fins and flukes to reach
The place where a mermaid leached
Of colour rests with hand on harp,
Plucking eternal sonata notes
Each feathered with seaweed floats
Back to the light above where
Birds asleep on the ocean dream but care
Not for music, but carry those
Echoes in their cries.