All my dandelions are dead mermaids
tangled in meadows, tethered to England.
They couldn’t drag me down, not for decades,

not even with those inhuman charades…
No beautiful haunt will change how I stand:
all my dandelions are dead mermaids

told where to grow by the digging of spades –
not one shall escape this garden I’ve planned.
They couldn’t drag me down, not for decades,

naked and swimming with hair in cascades…
No flick of the tail left vessels unmanned.
All my dandelions are dead mermaids

submissive to the sun, not the shifting shades
underwater or the swirling of sand.
They couldn’t drag me down, not for decades.

See them float away in lifeless parades,
searching for the sea – forever on land.
All my dandelions are dead mermaids.
They couldn’t drag me down, not for decades.