Monday, August 22, 2016

SELKIE - Joan Brady


Through the boarded window, a ladder
    of light falls across frayed carpet flowers.

Candles burn low in red glass bowls...
    illuminating shadow mice, as they
         scurry from a dead cat’s ghost.

Steel coils, spring up, ripping their way...slowly...
    through wine-stained, beige-velvet cushions.

A spider in her woven web...sits...
    suspended between wall and mandolin...waiting...    
         as the handless clock ticks in time
              counted by a cuckoo’s cry.

Forgotten food decays amid fragments of
    shattered porcelain...while the black phone
         rings over and over...
              then stops...unanswered.

Face up, a faded note lies upon the floor...

“Last night I dreamed of fuchsia fish swimming through air
    and when I woke, I longed, once again,
         to live beneath the sea...
              but I promise...I will be back often

                   enough to water the gardenias.”
***
Editors Note: If Selkies are unfamiliar, I suggest the movie linked below:

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