Selkie Poems

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Hope Chest

Skin folded
Neatly
Like some strange stand-in for
table cloth
or bedspread

I put it away
Tucked into a chest
Like hope
For the future
(another day to come)

I slipped my broad feet into
Little white shoes
Covered my dark head
With a veil

Trappings for his family

He knew
What I was

When I came
Bare and beaming
To my bridal bed

He knew what I was

What I am


*~*~*~*~*


Pretend

I never pretend

Never lie
to his family
or to him

that this curvy body never knew
another form

that these long limbs
were never flippers

that this creamy skin
was never stone
grey-brown,
gleaming
with ocean brine

I never pretend
I don’t miss it

That, when the seals bark
On the shore
I turn my head
My dark eyes betraying me
Longing

I never pretend,
heart lightened by lies,
that it doesn’t bother him

to see the truth

*~*~*~*~*