A Time to Remember

Two years.

i am your kitten.
i was your slave.
i was your selkie.

but that's how it came out, didn't it?
a fateful form of he loves me, he loves me not,
sacrificing flowers to prognostication.
i hoped for kitten, and even selkie
but i didn't cheat.
slave scared me.
i didn't know then how darkness draws me.
i didn't know then that i would take anything.
butterflies, eggplant, and oatmeal box cameras
flowers and crosswords and patio haircuts
spankings and canings and sobbing and cumming
catnip and movies and sleeping in your arms.

i am your kitten.
i am your slave.
i am your selkie.

it's been two years.
and we creep our way forward
wary of avalanches
one day at a time.

The selkie sits and edits

The selkie sits and stares
silently out to sea
content in her solitude.

No. Wrong. She doesn't stare. She isn't searching

The sea flows into her eyes
washing away the tears.

No. No tears now. Just a softness.
So OK, let's try this again.

The selkie sits and silently
swallows the sea into the
softness of her eyes,
content in her solitude.

No again. Sorry about that. Not silently.
There is an almost imperceptible hum,
a wordless song, but more shapeless
than a song. A little ribbon of sound.
Shall we take it from the top?

The selkie -

We are still talking about a selkie, right?

Yes, still the selkie. Try again.

The selkie, sitting, sends her strands of sounds out to the sky,
swallowing the sea into the softness of her eyes,
alone and yet content in -

I'm stuck. I was trying to put in something about "peaceful solitude" but it's not scanning.

That's ok. I was going to stop you anyway.
Not alone.
No solitude.
She doesn't feel alone.
Yes, I know, strictly speaking she's alone,
the red-haired Irish sea captain
gone on a voyage
lo these many years
no guarantee if and when he'll return
etc. etc.
Doesn't matter.
She doesn't feel alone.
There's this little warm glow...
Yes.
I know.
It doesn't make sense.
But there it is.
Try again.
One last time.

The selkie sits and smiles.

Yes.
Exactly.
Good girl.

Stalled

I'm very creative in the morning.
Creative and... twitchy.
I settle down in my office chair
and my cunt twitches, waving its
hand in the air, saying
"me, me me, I know the answer!
Pick me!"
Erotic images tease my brain
and leak onto the pages of my
little writer's notebook.
And there they die.
I am a solar-powered poet
with an endorphin-dependent mind.
Deprived of fuel, I idle.
Instead, I swap sweet and
genial messages with my
wild Irish philosopher,
reckless no more,
his sadistic side on
hiatus, surfacing in the
sporadic kinky film plug.
We talk until bedtime.
I don my ex-slave shirt and
snuggle between cool sheets,
sinking into dreams of selkies
submitting to tamers of the sea.

The Selkie Dances in the Sun

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. A bipolarity that waxes and wanes with the length of days and the glow of the sun.

Right now, I am high.

The sun is brilliant, it resists bedtime, it shivers with consciousness of its beauty and power. We are telepathic, the sun and I, we are sisters, wrenched from each other at birth. I sense her nearness, I know her joy, I drink her power, and make it my own.

The sun feeds the selkie in me. I’ve left behind the dark depths of the sea. I exhibit myself on a large flat rock, drinking in my sister’s kisses, feeding on her unlimited strength. My body smiles and warms, shedding the seal and returning to happy human form. I leave my seal cocoon behind, step out onto the shore, and dance naked before the world.

The sun feeds the selkie in me. The selkie who cleans and gardens and loves. The selkie who craves the sweet servitude of domesticity. The selkie who cooks and vacuums and loves.

Week by week I whittle away at the embarrassing doses of chemicals that keep me awake and thinking during the edited days of winter. The fever is upon me. I embark on projects of which I can only dream the rest of the year, praying to the sun goddess that this year, for once, I will get them all done before the dark enchantment returns.

It is spring.
I am high.
I am in love.

The seasons will change, their path is set. My mood will settle, will slide, will struggle, with only a dam of drugs to keep it from falling off the cliff into destruction below.

And the love? That word still makes me self-conscious and nervous, as if I’m not really allowed to say it. It is an unlikely tree to be growing by the shore of the sea. Its seasons are its own. Bursts of young green shoots and flowers of unworldly hue do-si-do with the triumphant shouts of leaves of crimson and gold that never fall, but merely morph back into green at some signal unheard by the rest of the world. Arising from a seed accidentally dropped, its growth rapid and stubborn, its color may change but its roots are firm. There is no storm that can blow it down, and it stands as a beacon shining out to sea.

I am your selkie.
I am the sun.
I shine with delight.
It’s time you came home.

The selkie watches for sails

i'm feeling sentimental tonight.
warm and cuddly even though alone.

the philosopher might have travelled down for the long weekend, but end of term for professors comes later than for students. i'm tempted to drive up, cane in hand, and wallop those tardy scholars who had the nerve to hand in their papers late.

BAD STUDENTS!
THWACK!!
THWACK!!!

but that's ok.
i'm not really angry.
i feel warm and cuddly and
flooded with sweetness
cradled in safety
secure in my bed with
Marko on my feet.

i'm feeling a little sad tonight.
we broke up last year
for the second time,
we almost lost it all at
the end of the term.
it was stupid, really,
sabotage by hormones and stress
and for some dumb reason
i got the urge to read it over tonight.

we rode it out.
we held on and made it through.
and in the end
everything changed.
we passed through the fire,
the fire and the ice
and on the other side
it was no longer a game.

i feel sentimental tonight
and warm and secure.
nothing scares me tonight.
i'm your selkie tonight.
i sweep the floor in our
cottage by the sea. i tend
the peat fire. the scent of
baking bread lures your
ship to shore as does the
memory of joy and
passion in my arms.

i am your selkie tonight.
and our cottage awaits your return.

The Legend of the Selkie

a joint, epistolary effort,
on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, 2007.
and afterwards, there came this litany:

"i am your kitten.
i am your slave.
i am your selkie."

and who are they, these parts of me?
kitten is for spanking.
the slave is for caning.
and the selkie?
dare we say it?

the selkie needs no chains.
this selkie isn't going anywhere.
the selkie is for taking in your arms.
the selkie is for loving.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Irish tell stories of the selkie. . .feral spirits in the form of seals, who frolic and play in the coldest ocean.

And occasionally, they shed their fur, and appear as preternaturally beautiful women, wild and foam-flecked, dangerous like a storm in the open sea, but lovely beyond the words of a million poets. . .

And they say, although no one has ever seen it happen. . .

that if you are bold and cunning. . .

and can contrive to steal their coat of fur,
when they take it off to swim. . .

That the beautiful woman will be yours to possess. . .

At the bottom of every legend, is a gleaming grain of golden truth. . .

- - - - -

I am a selkie who wants to be caught.

I've seen the handsome Irish sea captain standing at the prow of his ship. His dark red hair is wild from the wind, and the look in his eye is wild as well. He pretends to be cruel, but all I see is frustration, a desire for a passion that will consume him. His eyes burn, his skin burns, his soul is on fire seeking the love of his dreams. They say he loved and lost, they say he seeks a love beyond the human, which never will be found.

I am not human. And I burn as well.

I watch. I swim near his ship for days, until they anchor near a protected cove. I watch till I spy him standing on deck, looking towards the shore but seeing nothing...

... except now there is a sleek fur coat on a rock. And a woman's body slipping into the water. A body that dives and surfaces. She floats on her back, nipples saluting the sun. His eye is caught by red hair that matches his own. And something starts to stir...

I feel his rising interest. I am supernatural - as he grows I sense vibrations of disturbed air. I climb up onto the rock and display myself, seemingly oblivious to the threat which I have invited.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him move towards a life boat. And then suddenly his desire overtakes him, his renewed hope overwhelms him. He rips off his clothes and jumps into the sea.

He will take my coat, he thinks he will steal my coat, and then will possess me. But it is I who have set the trap. He is already mine.

- - - - - - -

My shameless selkie swims and shimmers, her naked body the plaything of the wild sea, her lust as deep and wide as the ocean

A bolt of lightning is more easily captured, an ocean wave more easily embraced.

But a madness is upon me, and the ocean is not as wild as my passion.

The arctic cold, I do not feel, and a lungful of brine I do not taste. My mind has contracted to a single thought. . .my aspirations narrowed to a single goal.

I will capture. . .

I will possess. . .

and I will ravish this sprite whose beauty has ravished me.

- - - - - - -

They like to think they are our captors, these wild
Irish men of the sea. They like to think they have
caught us, have bound us, have tamed us.
Their fantasies feed the fire in their loins.

We selkies have learned to leave them their legends.

My red-haired captain dives into the sea.
And I slither off my stone.
He will steal my coat and hide it in a cave, and when
I emerge from the water, naked as the lust in his
eyes, he will take me as his own.

He will lay me down upon the cold ground,
and the heat of our coupling will melt
the frost and cause wild roses to
spring up all around us.

I will never leave him.
They say we selkies in human form
yearn to return to
the sea.
But its call cannot drown the beating of my heart
when he takes me in his arms,
nor my wild cries
when he lies between my legs.

I do not wait for him to learn that he must destroy my seal coat to keep me his forever.

I burn it myself.

- - - - - -

She was easy to catch, this savage child of the sea. . .much easier
than the legends would have you believe. . .and when we grapple, it is
she who wraps her legs around me, as if to prevent my escape. . .

But in the flurry of limbs I can't be sure. . .I press my newfound
treasure to my chest. . .and penetrate her wailing mouth with my
tongue. . .

And the ocean I drown in is warm, and soft and gentle. . .and I sink
to its very bottom. . .

- - - - - - - -

The selkie in the morning

It is the first morning of her new life.
Seal no more, she has sacrificed slithering
through silvery waves for nights of
wild abandon and days of tender
joy. The naked man beside her stirs,
his red hair a match for her own.
She burrows up against his warmth
and sighs. He is her Captain. She has
no regrets.

Saturday, 16 March 2007