selkiestatisticaloutliers

To find what was stolen and stay anyway will make me a poor representative of my kind. How warm I once was! How foolish I’ll be known!

There’s another who never had hers stolen gave it freely to a human woman who in turn chopped off her heavy hair to join her half the year at sea.

We make mothers myths when mothers leave their children. Conjure spells, rituals, restrictions. Make reclamation a crime. Make nonsense of departure. Whole worlds sprung up to keep mommy away.

Now, the men among my kind are said to never have theirs taken. Instead they lure lovers to the deep. But I’ve met too many washed-up half-men to go on accepting that.

By the salted dawn I look you over and decide to stay. No child tying me, no moral obligation, only my coat on a hook in your closet, my miraculous ankles intertwined with yours. When you wake whatever we have lurches forward on equal footing.