the Selkie
A fantasy poem.
Striking down the pebbled beach
Feet waddling, wading to the edged shore
The salt-lipped waves lick her feet.
Hmm,” she says, dipping and stripping
Slipping off her smooth velvet skin
Ripping and peeking as she leaks
Flippers, and a tail, and wet whiskers.
She lays on her belly and rubs her nose
Forward-sinking and upside-swimming
Way out where weeds clump and climb
Sea trees and soaked sponge rocks.
“I’m swimming,” she says
“I’m sliding,” she says
Loosely lying belly-up.
She pats her silk belly
Swollen with warm blubber
Blowing bubbles through her
Silver whiskers. Water pops
Over her slime-shod pear-shaped
Figure and she revels.
Proportions she assigns seem
Simply sumptuous at the time
Of setting, sun dipping down
Past night she plays,
Plashing and splaying
“Look at me!”
Until the last-lipped ray
Shutters quiet the night.
She drags her flippers to
The bank, breaching tension,
Rising dripping above the sea.
She is diving into her
Second skin with fingers
That grasp and flesh
Which seeks the sun
On solid pillars.
She suits up her human skin.
Looks back.
That’s her.
She crunches up the pebbled beach
Mourning the loss of her
Mirror-lifting sea
Heavy with moonshine.
Poem, The Selkie, 2022.
