Selkie

    There is a fisherman sitting on a rock by the shore; his forlorn grey eyes watching grey clouds rolling over apathetic grey waves, and beyond, a grey horizon.
He sits with empty hooks, empty nets, empty stomach, wrapped in layers of clothes like broken shutters that do not keep the chill out. Young and tan, he is, skin chapped by the wind, broad shouldered and well muscled from breaking his back dawn to dusk.
That must be all he knows, a grey life of work and water.

Fisherman, fisherman
come to the shore,
and I will meet you there.
I am velvet,
I am smooth.
Oh fisherman,
come down to the water.

Slinky
Silky
Selkie.

Fisherman, fisherman
let's play in the sea.
Forget your empty stomach,
there is only me
and the rolling waves.
Forget your net,
and your steel hooks,
they have nothing on me.

Shady
Shifty
Selkie.

    Must I come to you, for you see me not? I am shedding my skin, for you, fisherman.
Behold now the fair maiden down by the shore; my ivory skin, rose in the setting sun's light shining through rolling, parting clouds. My hair is black as a starless night, absent of the moon, shiny as polished metal, thick and tumbling to my thighs. Nude and newly made, stepping forth from the sea like Aphrodite, am I dream-like? Are you frightened? You stare in wide-eyed wonder as water droplets catch light and glint like diamonds as they fall and roll slowly down my skin.
Curiously we stare at each other.
   
    The fisherman stands, and I beckon him nearer. He comes on unsteady feet, slowly as though afraid they will betray him, as though he is unused to this mode of transport. Tentatively touching my hand, while looking into my eyes, seeking permission, he explores my fingers, as though miraculous things, and kisses my small, white, salty palm. Then his coarse, calloused hands find their way to my waist, pulling me close, and there is no yielding.
We make love on the sand, with the tide coming in and the drowning sun flashing red.
   
    In each other’s arms and losing the light, he stares intensely at me, the dark-eyed, washed up beauty, as though sketching me in his mind so as to remember. I whisper, and laugh, "Let us bathe in the sea!" With a kiss goodbye, I say, "I go to the sea."

Sultry
Sexy
Selkie.

    Divine curves, long legs, small feet sprinting, and barely leaving prints in the sand; I know he is watching as I’m running. After a moment, he gathers his wits and follows, bare as I, to a crag where I came ashore. Searching desperately among the rocks, I am panicking, frantic and wild.
    Jumping at the touch of his hand on my shoulder, I tell him breathlessly, "I have lost my clothes; they are precious dear to me. Let me find them on my own. Go away, go back to our stretch of beach.”
    He, shaking his head, starts combing the rocks, looking high and low and suddenly shouting with joy. Holding high for me to see, in his hands like a trophy, is a shiny pelt, and I feel like I am dying. He is unaware of it all, exuberant and laughing. "See this?” He says, “What luck! A beautiful dark seal, clean, and expertly skinned, I’ve never seen it’s like. This is the highest quality. With the money this will bring I swear to buy you something to win your heart, my lady, for you have mine already."    
   
    I can feel my heart breaking, and the pieces all sinking, the blood from me is draining, and everything is going numb, and everything is black, and all in a moment there is nothing.

    I had fainted, striking my head, and he carried me to his home and he gave me his bed. Weeks he spent nursing me back to health; weeks in despair I spent in his loving care. With the sudden wealth from the sale of the perfect seal pelt he bought me a ring, and I named it Irony.

   
    The fisherman and I were wed in the spring, he in red and I in blues, bound at the edge of the sea.

My true skin, is gone in the wind,
I know not where,
all for the sake of a fisherman;
to tumble on the sand
and to roll in the deep,
to take him away from the grey.

Landlocked and wholly
in my only body,
there is no escape for me.
Wanted and womanly,
I love him faithfully,
and I love him mournfully.
A fisherman's wife forever to be,
nevermore to play in the sea...

Sadly
Secretly
Selkie.