Selkie Weaning Young (Redux)

Finding her hide we trailed 
                                    fingers down then against  
             grains of fur thrusting shoulders into its waxy skin. 

                                                                This is how she found us 
                           the past draped about us like a cloak 
hands separating peach halves from a core. 

                                   Her form in the sound 
a pandan leaf peeking through milk. The only seals in Vietnam: 
                                                                   American men with green faces.

Copyright © 2023 by Diana Khoi Nguyen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 17, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.