Three Magic Seals

by Rhys Hughes

With a Loving Kiss

The bottle
contained a message
but the message wasn’t a letter.
No, this message was a drawing
rather better
than one might expect.

It depicted a seal in a bikini
blowing a kiss
and underneath this
a caption said ‘self portrait’.

And I gazed awhile
with a wistful smile
before replacing it in the bottle.
Clearly it wasn’t intended for me
so I returned it
to the deep blue sea.

Sea
Seal
Sealed
with a loving kiss.

The Bedroom Seal

I think of my bed
as a raft adrift on the ocean
and in the starlight
I wait for you to join me.
The splash of your flippers
in the depths of the carpet
means you are surfacing
and soon will climb
onto the mattress next to me
and be mine again.

Then I will tickle you
and in mock fright that
is more than half delight
we will play-fight with each other
using the bed as a trampoline
(a trampoline of dreams)
until at last you jump so high
you catch a blade of the ceiling fan
and spin round and round
shouting, “wheeeeee” before
letting go and flying out the window
into the pond below…

Yes, you are a bedroom seal,
slippery as an eel,
and I’m an indoors sailor.

I Feel

They have
no knees, if you please.
Therefore I feel
that to see a seal kneel
will mean
it’s the silly season again.

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© Copyright Rhys Hughes

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Rhys Hughes was born in Wales but has lived in many countries in Europe and Africa. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. In his spare time he keeps writing. He is nearing the end of a thirty year project to write exactly one thousand linked short stories. He has also written plays, poems, articles and puzzles for a variety of international publications, and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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