Egg case (Chondrichthyes)

Mermaid's Purse.

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• published: 24 May 2011
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This is a poem I wrote several years ago, inspired by mermaid's purses i found on the beach at Hatteras. Here's the text of the poem: "Mermaid's Purse" I was also born out of the sea, out of rocky oyster shells and polyphemous waves, Under gulls riding changes in the wind. Tied To coral, to warped twigs in green light, cartilage congealed Into a diamond-winged body, brown above and ghostwhite below, and a trailing tail. Swimmers all of us. What I couldn't see from my point on land I connected To things I recognized. It rained. Water met water, a million drops disturbed The surface. But the fish only feel it when the waves grow heavy enough to drag Them into the air. They feel it always. Even fused to their element They breathe the threat Above. Where I walked gulls ran at the waves, caught quick bites, and picked at tidal remains. No sun Breaks. Not since my birth has the sun come Through to here, and the cold water runs wild and foul abandoned To itself. I never noticed the currents above and below that shook me in The tasteless pouch of comfort and unliving, My dark home. The light broke, called me to follow, and my world split and was carried Upward to the gull cries and foamy strings playing on the surface. I catch It as it comes in With the waves: a black leathery rectangle with wiry Arms at its corners. It's a mermaid's purse, still thick with the smell of the sea. On the sand Nearby, half-sunk in foam and nearly invisible where it lies exposed, Is a skate Thrown onto the beach by an earlier wave, tail still Touching the tide as it goes out. I skim the bottom while threatening shadows of gulls pass over My body blended with the background. Only touches of white where My wings curl over reveal Me, and the waves protect me for now. I prowl for the dead, scavenging for leftovers Of storms, starvation, And the hard black tides that strand and take back. An offshore squall washed up blowfish, foam, and bubbled tresses of seaweed. A strangled heron Lies spread in flight on a pile of driftwood, cracked beak pointed toward Sky-blue crabs clustered in a collective grave. A rust-skinned hook threatens nothing, Though it lies close to a fish still and silver in the gray light. All around Are fragments of sponge and coral. A string of bleached and broken shells has settled Into a ridge to hold The water as it comes in, puts its arms out to the things in its reach, and pulls Them close. When I broke from the blackness it was freedom, it was the beginning Of the new tide. The wind dies Suddenly and the sun pushes through. From over the water, for a moment, It becomes The same sun under the water, rays reflected into sea urchin spines. The farthest Waves turn blue then, as they approach, they change to aquamarine, Shedding skin And mingling with white. They roll in. Smoky quartz Carries the beat of sand against sand. They reach forward, And water curls Over land, over itself. Its edges end, then begin, in the moment when the foam reaches The highest point and remains trembling in the wind.