Selkie

He used to stand by the quayside
watching the water peel shadows,
his dull pelt dappling the surface.
He wondered where it went,
why the dawn returned it.

He thought himself cursed.
A liquid Prometheus
flayed and made whole.
Flayed and made whole.

He felt the tide move in him,
the moon play with his watery core,
his skin ease from his meat
to shrivel where he stood
so he could fillet water like a knife.

David J. Costello lives in Wallasey, Merseyside, England. He is a member of Chester Poets. David has been widely published on-line and in print including Prole, The Penny Dreadful, Shooter, Magma and Envoi. David is a previous winner of the  Welsh International Poetry Competition and received a special commendation in the year’s competition. His debut pamphlet, Human Engineering, was published by Thynks Publishing in October 2013. A second pamphlet will appear in September 2016 from Red Squirrel Press.