Selkie

I found her in October forest

Listening to wood pigeons fuss about the brook

Tentative as a roe deer in torchlight

Hair tangled with pine cones

How had she become yesterday?

Rambling towards the folly

With toffee flavoured anticipation 

Followed by nuthatches and starlings

Glimmering with purple turquoise 

Wind hushing through branches 

Huddled over the glen

Entwined with rusted bracken 

Drizzle-covered fuzz of blond-brown hair 

Humming as she slid the scree

To land on the bank  

Forest angel tasting mist

Caressing the morning with eager fingers

Lips licked slick with anticipation 

Here in the rippling mirror lies beyond 

Through the looking glass 

Cut deep by ice 

Carved into the below 

It calls her to the sea

Sprites jitter on the pebbled edges 

As soon as she feels the water 

Pulls her skin close over her bones 

She is free