-
Red Brian took the seal maiden
to his house further along the shore.
-
They drank wine from seashells
and slept wrapped in fishing nets
-
and before long, she was his wife
-
and in her happiness forgot even
her first home, the waves, for a time.
-
The following spring they had a son.
-
He was born with a sealskin
wrapped lightly around him like a coat.
-
Apart from that, he looked
like any other human child.
-
The seal maiden hid the sealskin
before anybody could see it.
-
"I'm surely tied to the earth now," the seal maiden
whispered as she looked at the baby boy.
-
She wondered how much
seal blood was in the baby.
-
She held her ear to the small chest
to listen for the ocean in his heartbeat.
-
There it was, a whoosh from the depth.
-
No one else would hear it,
only her, and the baby himself.
-
The seal maiden rarely went
along the shore at night now.
-
All her time was spent with the baby,
feeding and washing and singing to him.
