DRAMATIC Monlogue Poem: SELKIE, by Donna Latham

I found it. Memories flooded back, splashed over me in waves, as the Old Ones promised.
I found it in the cellar. Stumbled upon my precious gray coat. Stashed in his double-locked oaken chest stowed there. My skin, long lost and now found. Found yesterday, when the fisherman left behind his skeleton keys. Bolted off to carouse at the pub. Forgot keys that always clanged from a leather cord wound round his waist.

The fisherman stole my skin years ago. He stalked shorelines with other ruffians. Louts tall as they were broad. Terrifying men armed with harpoons. Clubs. Chains. Men the Old
Ones warned of, deep beneath the sea.

Been seven years since he captured me. I was reckless then. Laughed away the Old Ones after cavorting in waves. I lolled on shore, naked and pale. A pillow of coarse curls fanned beneath my head. I dozed. In human form.
“Well, well. What treasure washed ashore?”

The fisherman caught me unawares. He loomed over me, blocked out the midday sun. I scrambled for my skin. He was quicker. He tucked my pelt under a massive arm. Gripped my wee webbed hand. Hauled me to his shack like wreckage. Forced me be his wife.
Gobsmacked by my unearthly beauty, so he claimed. As if that’s enough to right a wrong.

Straightaway, villagers set to whispering. His big-bosomed mother elbowed fishwives aside. Rose on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
“Better tae keep selkie ways oot o’ her memory.”

Seafaring chums tapped leaky noses between puffs of smoke and chugs of brown drink.
They hissed advice.
“Best tae lock the skin away. Hide her coat? Steal her memories.”
“Aye! Lest yer selkie remember wild ways. Escape ye where waters are black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat.”

I glared at fisherfolk with fathomless eyes. No one gave a care for what I wanted. Nor wondered why I bolted each day to the shore. Nor fretted for loves I’d left behind. My seal husband. A mammoth bull, both gentle and ferocious. Our silver-spotted pups, enchanted all. I turned away, for I’d grant fisherfolk no satisfaction. They’d not spy seven salt tears escaped from my eyes.

The sea gives, and the sea takes. One fine thing it’s given me is patience. Patience over seven long years, trapped between Earth and Sea. Belonging to neither. Haunting both. The magic in me is old. Old as the sea. Magic spoken in a tongue ancient as time.

The fisherman’s at sea today. Out in a rickety boat.
I hurl ancient words across the waves:
You’ve no right to pluck a wild creature from the sea.
To keep it for yourself.

Hurl words to terrify him:
The sea gives, and the sea takes.
You took me from the sea. I’ll give the sea a bit of you in return.
Your boat’s drain plug.
The plug you kept latched with your skeleton keys.
So you’d never forget it.
I plucked it away with wee webbed hands.

I hurl the plug into the waves, dive in the opposite direction. The Old Ones trumpet a welcome home. My seal husband and daughters surround me with sleek heads. They bark in joy. Nearly enough to right a wrong.