I’m certain a family of selkies
lives next door. How else to explain
seagulls squabbling over the breadcrumbs
of unpaid gas bills? The sudden
appearance of a basking shark,
bigger than their battered Volvo,
in the garden pond? Swabbing
floors with a wig of seaweed?
Storm petrels squawking whenever
pirate ship rain-clouds circle
their chimney? Worshipping puddles
like they’re shallow rock pools?
The bottle cap shingle of a makeshift beach
by the back door? Skinny dipping
in a Jacuzzi’s diminutive sea
under the protective gaze of a full moon?
Perhaps their sealskins are locked away
in a man’s ribcage, convinced the ocean
owed him one after it swallowed
everything, and threw up bones,
a childhood stolen by reckless tides.