
Selkie Mother
The story goes like this: You tug at your ring finger with calloused palms. Pacing from room to room, you forget why the trunk is locked, until memory unlocks it. The seal skin is fresh, slides, glides over the back of the neck, around the breasts. The thick thighs undivide, one from two. Be breath and water, be sleek, be song. Waves come and go. Body apart from heart. Start toward the depths, dark water, seen from after. Look back once. Their small human fingers will slide off your slippery coat, nothing to catch hold of, no memory, no regret. Leave them only eyes dark and opaque. Only the sea. That’s the way people tell it, anyway. As usual, they have mistaken what you want. Leaving was never the end. To come and go was your only desire. The seal skin was never the barrier; the only severance was the lock.