Selkie

When flung on sand I did not know fins intended
becoming feet.
How strange those bones and toes
that Tempest bruised.

Healing is at first crawling.
Nights taught what legs were for
and I learned sleep in the day.

Dreaming then was certainly a sea change.
Coral kept calling, knowing I’d be back,
that the earth was just dirt.
Cities especially brought back that fact.

By then I was employed,
under the table in more ways than one,
and only finding a field to stand in
returned waves of reverie.

Wind-song, hair lifted
adrift in dancing currents—
the salt on my face was such a surprise
with its little memory of greater liquid.

There must be an ocean inside still,
I thought; there must be a web
between fingers floating before horizons.

Through such blue,
Life’s lessons held a message
And my purpose was to sing of it.

Selkie

Tell of your journey, siren,
stray sailors whispered,
but no sheets were satin enough,
no skin sibilant as those fathoms out.

Rocks brought me down again,
pocket by pocket,
from ship’s profile to anchor
with albatross-grace.

Then I cast off, stripping underneath,
reclaiming iridescent gills
and home’s giddy laughter
bubbling epochs of emerald all of the way.