Whiskers

Whiskers

 

My wetsuit clings to my body, mermaid-scale-like,

Core-selkie assimilating, I enter the clear waters off St Martin’s -

I thought I'd feel cold, but this second skin’s absorbing my sensory fears,

Maybe this is how they feel when they enter the water too?

Their heads bob to the surface like curiosity-corks

At ours doing likewise,

As my daughters peer at our new-found pod from our Isles of Scilly rib.

 

My mask on securely

I lower my face into the turquoise-blue,

Where Neptune’s other-worldly wonders

Open out their depths to greet me, like his Salacia. 

Herein waves a vast, beautiful kelp-green shimmering forest.

The mask feels alien now, like an octopus

With suckers over my nose and mouth.

 

A tube with which to breathe above the surface from below, bubbles -

"Don't suck the water in" the instructor reminds us,

"Keep your head above the water and gradually descend";

It is in this descent that freedom resides -

To breathe underwater with them,

Share the same space,

Face to face,

No mask for them, just whiskers.

 

Puppy-dog eyes on your seal-pup face

So close, so close,

A rush from my heart, I move aside

And forget not to suck in the gasp

As salt-water fills my mouth.

Post-splutter, I hang in the water mimicking the sleek foliage around me  

(if one can be sleek at my age...)

The tube saving me from myself.

 

I watch as you turn gracefully to come back around

To swim with me again;

To rise through my feet to my (not unlike) seal-belly

Swiftly ascending to cross my (heart-in-mouth) chest

Our two hearts just a heartbeat away.

Mottled grey skin touches wetsuit-skin

And momentarily we are one.

 

In our dance of an embrace,

You pour your innocent essence into my shipwrecked-soul's vessel

To sail with me forever,

A photographic message in a bottle,

Filling me with Attenborough-esque magic.

As your wild yet gentle whiskers brush softly against my masked face

You seem to whisper "breathe...remember to breathe".

 

I learn from you,

And in my deepest moments of depression, 

Remember our intimate encounter;

You were there, so close,

Swimming into my selkie-psyche -

Your trustingly, smooth, dark pearl-round eyes mirroring our deep

Reciprocal need,

To save each other

From drowning.

A Wensley

Jawbone Journal 4 Submission version 18/9/2026

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Previous version notes:

9.05.2026

Produced at today's Jawbone Workshop 'Personal Mythologies' with Rebecca Danicic

Inspired by a true encounter with seals just off St Martin's in the Scilly Isles in 2017.