Throwback Thursday: ‘Sea Changes’ by Matilda Berke

So much mud on the new day. I am standing
with my head wet & your blue coat, both

slick as sidewalk forget-me-nots. Consider
all this a chorus. Fold
a newspaper boat in each riptide named

for our nation, for the etchings
in sand & unbloomed pavement.
You don’t know it yet, but these

are the steps you will marry on. & these,
the champagne flutes filled with good clean rain

& here I will sit and wait.

~

There is a story on the islands
where a seal-girl comes to land 

& sheds her skin for a chance at genesis.
We were formed in the image of floating.  & still,
I swam in the public pool so long I swore

my palms grew webs.  You couldn’t know
of midsummer tiles behind your chest & key,
of begging for birth in reverse.  A lonesome

seadog with a book of Celtic myths.
I haven’t seen the ocean since.