My Mother's Sea Story

A poem by Louisa Howerow

Once upon a time, a man and woman
slipped out of the sea. Their skin
shed silver scales. Eyes grew lids.

The woman shivered
convinced she would drown
in the thin light of early spring,

but the man deemed the land good.
They crossed the shoreline,
though he knew nothing, said my mother,

about seeds or harvests or fallow fields.
In ten years the furrows were sucked dry
and willows ceased divining. Nothing,

I echoed. The woman,
belly barren, flies nesting on lips,
wanted to disappear into the beginning

where they had gills and wing-like fins.
Back to the sea, I said.
To swim free, said my mother.

Squinting against the sun, heels slapping sand,
we ran into the rhythmic waves. Salt water
scoured skin, reclaimed mother of pearl.

Copyright Louisa Howerow