Selkie's Girl

Mam used to tread on seashells in our house, with feet that
never quite fit her. Only later would I see how she was meant to move.

Once I woke in the small hours and felt her gone. Peering
across the strand, I saw her kneel by the waterline. She drew clawfuls
of sand and flung them out, baying and barking
from her throat. The moon made an oil slick
of her skin, a wildness she could not give me. 

She wept when I asked her to teach me
to swim. "Little thief," she said, "Don't you know
that seashells are bones?" I knew, but I wanted
her to cast me in skin. I wanted my hair to knot
like hers, like seaweed. I wanted my body to look
like hers, the roundness of her womanself,
the damp and furry places. "Foolish child," you will say
and you will not be wrong, for I was the thief
whose love trapped her here, the thief that freed her, too.
I could not look like her if I tried. In hungrier times, I make
the same moaning sounds, barking like questions she will not answer. 

Lately I feel the stirring of wildness
Mam left behind. You will tell me, and you will not be wrong,
to find the seed of that wildness and seal
it in. But if I cannot go back to the sea
as she did, I will spend the rest of my life learning how.