The Selkie Wife's Daughter

by Jeannine Hall Gailey

I always wondered why she sang so strangely

at the spinning wheel, why her eyes held all

the mourning of the darkest sea. And why

she held me away,

as if afraid of my skin, why my feet and

hands were webbed with translucent sea–skin.

I used to bring her armfuls of yellow

water iris to almost

see her smile. I wondered why father

never let me swim out against the waves,

never let her walk the shores alone.

He feared she might

disappear like a snatched breath on every

angry tide. And when I found the skin,

by accident, beneath the kindling, its fur

mottled as the moors

in summer, soft as milk in my twelve–year–old

hands, I brought it straight to her. I hoped

she might smile again. I couldn't guess

she might hold me close,

then shrug on that magic seal coat and swim

quickly away, enchantment broken, transformation

complete. She never saw me, waving frantic

from the shore.

So that's what she left me — webbed fingers

and toes, a lonely father, the stench of salt

and seaweed, the knowledge she had never

been herself with me.