UPDATE The boy builds a four-throated fishout of cardboard. The fish lips flap, blue-taped, from a body thatcarried bottles. See! He saysa large-mouth bass. I’d have smiled once (inwardly of course) at his fine imaginary, thought him unspoiled, amusing himselfwith the trash.                               Wasn’t I…

to any God that made mefeel ashamed.  Girls are takers,Mama used to say. I took every lesson     she gave me, learned  to swim out of my body & abandon it. With incense I burned pagesuntil a perfect eye stared back.  God drilled a hole to make us see. See? Mine is filthy.   He, too, eyed me each day afterschool,   …

Not the storm, but the calm. Not the flurry of attention               called to the sky.Not the rumour of a hurricane on the horizon.Not humidity, the mosquitoes rising               like smoke from the fields. Not a history of revisions we call             …