It’s May and the first bloom opened on the rose. …It’s been five years since it happened but the thorns of each year prick my heart as sharply as do the thorns on Barbrianna’s briar.
A contemporary fantasy inspired by Child’s Ballad #84, “Barb’ry Allen.”
The White Seal
I was not of the sea but loved its blue-green presence as though I were one of its children. The sea murmurs constantly as it takes pieces of the land and breaks them, softens the rough edges, turns them to sand. Like sand, I am worn so no one can tell where I belong.