The quiet slip of tide
scouring footprints from ashy sand.
The shush of salt to skin
and the flesh tightens with cold.I'm nursing a chilled hunger
for gray waters and ice capped rock.I remember her photograph;
Shawl drawn over dark hair, bare feet, buttoned up to the neck;
a girl who left home alone to live
only to die young on strange soil.I wonder if she clung to these waters,
Because she longed for her own shores.
still searching for her seal skin.She hoped for home.
She gave me my name
and I am still here
perhaps craving those same unseen swells.DNA strung like harp strings in my bones,
the salt burn of genetic memory.