From A Shell

From a shell came Divine instruction
insistent as a drowning man's hand,
his ear a barrel of seven-year whiskey.

As his bones grew longer, firmer,
the ground gave way so that he was always at sea,
a perpetual castaway in the solid world.

A woman, his mother,
said his head was in the clouds;
another woman, undressed and unhappy,
said he never heard a word she said.

He hears, but his heart is a barrel of seven-year whisky
a sea within a sea within a man
at the mercy of the Selkies who shed 
their seal-coats at his feet and sing.
______

for Sunday Muse #68.