The weather turns. A wind from the north has flown in, with its violent curse, and it raises the waves till I cannot shut out their yowling.
The old scars itch on my flank, disquieted. The hairs on my spine rise up in the chill that presses itself under the door, an insinuating ghost.
The cat has wound herself to an endless running from one end of the house to the other, poor bristling devil.
The grass is aching with frost. Birds fall, small toys, from the trees in their deaths. The cold is murderous.
In the churchyard, the drowned walk at noon as if it were night. They return to old beds, slip in by their frozen wives.
And I am numbing myself with my baking, my stitching, by washing the floors till the stone begins to thin. I hide my face from the mirror: its enquiry threatens. If I could forget, the water could not claim me.
Seal Wife by Kitty Coles
