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Sport 34: Winter 2006

Part 1 — Johnsonville

page 86

Part 1
Johnsonville

I'm a ghostwriter
for a boy I sort of knew.

He slid through the world
barely touching the sides.

Since we met
I've spent my time pulling light
through tiny holes.

My view of the future is
an unlit match held
in his capable hands.

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Typo

Mrs Spears from next door came to visit with a jar of chutney for Sylvia and Bea, crocheted booties for the new baby. When she heard his name she said, He's doomed. Her husband had just died of asbestos poisoning.

At school they thought he couldn't spell. They corrected him by printing an R after the F. He quietly rubbed out their efforts.

His mother Sylvia went to work in an office where typewriters tapped out metal rhythms and industry was sounded by a bell at the end of a line. His grandmother Bea made his breakfast and taught him to shake hands firmly. She put plasters on his knee scabs in summer, wool hats on his head in winter.

In the school holidays they rode the train into town to meet Sylvia for lunch. The lift took them to the twelfth floor of an old concrete building. He watched Sylvia's red fingernails dance over the keyboard, pull the freshly printed sheet from the roller, place it in a folder with a satisfying click. He forgot to ask for the toilet and left a puddle under his shoes in the lift.

Why didn't you tell me? Sylvia's nails pressed all the buttons.

Bea growled. Leave him.

Bea pulled a newspaper from her handbag and mopped up the pee. At James Smith's he got new undies, shorts and a custard square. When he bit into it the pastry broke and custard fell in chunks off his chin onto his new shorts. Sylvia rolled her eyes.

Jeezus Federico, she said.

Going home in the train, the smell of dust and engines in his nose, he asked Bea a question.

Why aren't I called Fred? It had been bothering him for a while.

Bea took her eyes of the gorse and green of the Ngaio Gorge. She looked at him.

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You could be anything with your name, which is why I thought of it.

All the typekeys in his heart got pressed at once and stuck together.

You called me Federico?

Well, I suggested it. And for once Sylvia listened to me.

The train entered the tunnel and the windows went dark. The letters of his name untangled themselves and stood clear in their own white space.

Porridge

Bea pours cream into a white jug and sets down two bowls of sweet gluey oats. He likes the jug's handle best—a protruding ear, the kind a mother tapes back at night, a handle to curve exactly into his small palm. He pours a moat round the bowl's castle.

Bea talks as she eats.

Before rockets went to the moon, people thought the earth was flat. Columbus chained his crew's feet to the ship's deck, they thought they would fall off the end of the world. Others said a wall, one hundred and fifty feet high and made of ice, rose at the earth's edges. They said beyond the wall lay The Unknown. Now what, my darling, do you suppose that is?

His castle is melting into its moat. Oil slicks and lumpy oats hang in the yellowing cream. Federico licks the back of his spoon and brings it close to his left eye, which grows large, bulbous. Behind him, the kitchen falls out to the spoon's rim and will not stop turning.

Mr Flood is an old actor in a brown suit

He comes every Saturday for dinner with two bottles of stout and a flower for Bea. Flood could eat four chops and five potatoes. He circles his plate twice with the gravy jug. His movements are deliberate, as if carving out space around him. Federico can get halfway through his meal before Flood has taken his first mouthful. He puts a bit of everything on his fork, then lets it rest on the side of his plate. Beatrice, he says, Johnsonville is the wrong canvas for a woman like you.

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He lifts the fork to his open mouth. Flood chews food fully, like a cow. Sylvia and Bea tilt their chins and squint at him.

Are you saying I've misplaced myself, Sarsfield?

Federico keeps his hands under the table.

Federico, leave your peas on your plate, says Sylvia.

Flood swallows his food carefully and puts his knife and fork down.

All I'm saying is, how did we end up here?'

Federico rolls a pea between his thumb and finger. He tries his best to listen. The space between people at the table seems to expand, but no one moves. He pushes the pea into the underside of his chair and waits.

Where would you rather we be, Sarsfield

Oh. He waves his knife in the air then points it at the window. He cuts up a potato. Federico looks outside. There is the white sky and the garden, whose blooms this year are disappointing.

Boating

At school they watched a movie about tectonic plates and an island made of fire. The island flowed away from itself down into the sea, then hardened to rock and back into an island. Stretching and reforming, over and over. The island was really a live volcano spewed out of the sea. The teacher said of course people couldn't live there. On screen, the lava bubbled thickly and poured down a valley of rock. Its surface seemed to dry in the air as it moved, dark rock cracking over an orange liquid surface. Broken toffee.

That night, after Sylvia has turned off the light, Federico imagines himself alone on the island, falling, rising in a boat. Spat out of a fiery core he rides the bright valley into the sea.

May tomorrow be a perfect day

Bea's in the kitchen rinsing plates, humming the magpie song. Sylvia will not let him down from the table until he eats his egg white.

But Donny and Marie is on.

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Sylvia widens her eyes, taps her cheek with her index finger.

Egg white makes me sneeze.

No it doesn't, she says.

It's disgusting. It's like, it's like. He tries to think of the most disgusting thing. Sick and snot. He looks down at his yolky crusts, stringy white in its little metal cup. Sylvia places her hands on the table and stands up.

You know what, Federico, do what you want.

She leaves the room. The air is brighter without her. Sylvia's like a background sound he wishes would turn off, like the rugby game he heard while he dozed on the couch next to Bea. She wriggled and whooped beside him. He climbs down from the table and switches the TV on. Forgets egg white and Sylvia, disappears into the sweet heart of Marie Osmond.

Handbag

Bea's handbag is like a brain with lists in it—
Rothman's
toilet paper
onion x 2

In the kitchen Bea talks to the brain
Where are the bloody keys?
  Have you seen my wallet?
    It's a black hole in here.

From the brain she has pulled
a gingerbread man,
a plastic duck,
five Real Lace handkerchiefs.

Outside, the world
is having its own conversation—
roots to leaves,
  grass to sky,
    birds to plain air.

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Genius

From behind the paper Flood uses his actor voice. I'm sick of all this talk about genius. Everyone's a goddamn genius these days. Olivier, Brando, Leigh. Ha! Leigh was mad as a cut snake. He pauses, clears his throat. There is nothing extraordinary about talent. Federico's pencil stops moving. Bea looks up. What dear?

From the floor, Federico considers this and his drawing. He is trying to figure out why his people always look flat. At school his friend Robert showed him how to draw a box that looks real. He would be satisfied with a flat world if the outlines were steady. He remembers a book he saw at the library.

Einstein was a genius, says Federico.

Flood shakes his head. Einstein was a slow child. Didn't say a word till he was four. Then one night at dinner he says, Mother, this soup is cold.

Sounds genius to me, Bea says. She looks down at Federico. I believe geniuses are born.

Mr Flood folds his hands together and considers the light shade. It is my belief that the idea of genius gets confused with what is, in fact, hard work.

Who wants to believe in that? she says.

Exactly, Beatrice.

Midnight special

Flood's blue work shirt
a bright flag in the garden,
head bent as he pulls tender
weeds between fingers and thumb,
quiet fracture of roots
from earth.

Pieces of song float over
the backyard, settle on the dirt
like rain, or food

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let the midnight special
shine a light on me

let the midnight special
shine its ever lovin' light
on me

over and over
until it's dream song,
a tide cutting
the world at its edges.

Field Trip

He visited the Tip Top factory where ice cream fell in creamy bricks from a silver chimney. He gorged on Eskimo Pies. The class went to a farm. The farmer showed them how to slit a sheep's throat, the old-fashioned way. The butcher's thick forearm dropped saveloys into his hand. They were cold and left fatty deposits on the roof of his mouth.

He dreams of renaming himself—Francis of the little animals, Swift of the underwater.

Ghost Fish

They lie in bed and wait for the sounds of morning. Bea tells him about the Abacus, the leaning tower of Pisa and the saddle that worms get when they're pregnant. She clears her throat and lights a cigarette. Occasionally she blows a smoke ring. He puts his finger through it.

I'm getting married, he says. Light hits Bea's perfume bottles, reflects back on the wall like ghost fish swimming.

Who to? she asks.

Donny and Marie.

Unfortunately, my boy, you must pick one. She waggles her finger. People don't like the normal order to be disturbed. We are, after all, creatures of habit. Bea drags on her smoke. We are broken records. She holds her finger to her lips. Listen, it's Jean's front door.

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Click.

Feet crunch gravel outside.

Here comes Mr Scale's gate.

Slam.

Bad morning.

Slam again.

Forgot his car keys. Every morning he forgets his car keys. Bea sighs and stubs out her smoke. Her face changes to a smile. He stares at her teeth, a crooked row of yellow marble. Breakfast? she says. She climbs out of bed and fish slip up the walls. He tries to catch them with his hands.

Sex

Now pour the vinegar on. The frothy white liquid swells. Federico and Robert watch as it rises over the side of the basin and drips onto the bathroom carpet.

This is excellent news for mankind, says Robert. The frothing continues. Federico wonders about Robert's mother. When will it stop?

Progress never stops.

Robert is training to be an inventor. He told Federico about magnetic South and black holes. Federico told him about sex.

And then the man puts his thing in the lady's hole.

What happens next?

That's all. Apart from a baby.

Robert screwed up his nose. Sounds boring.

Federico agreed; volcanoes were better. But there was something funny about sex. Once he saw one of Sylvia's boyfriends rolling on top of her. The boyfriend made a whining noise, like a cat when it catches a bird. They hear footsteps on the stairs. Robert grabs a towel off the rail and throws it over the carpet. Robert's mother knocks at the door.

What are you boys doing?

We're making a surprise.

The door handle turns.

Mum!

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You're not getting into my hairspray again are you Robert?

No.

Remember what we said about trust.

Yes.

She releases the door handle.

Hairspray is very explosive, Robert whispers.

The best thing about Robert is his ideas, and his sister Hayley. She's older and has John Travolta posters on her wall; she's training to be a Solid Gold dancer. Hayley made Robert hold a wobbly footstool while she kicked high in the air, then star-jumped into a bean bag. She said Federico had to be Danny in Grease. Robert went to get a torch to use as a spotlight and Hayley grabbed Federico. She said, Tell me about it, Stud, and kissed him. She smelt of arrowroot biscuits. He didn't tell Robert.

At dinner, Robert's mother asked each person how their day went. She smiled a lot and said she was very proud of her family's ambition. Mr Rodgers said, Pass the potatoes, Robert. He was training for a marathon. Mrs Rodgers looked at Federico.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It was something he had been considering. He thought of what Bea always told him.

A genius, he said.

Sundays were when the world ended

You can't be gallivanting round the neighbourhood all week, says Sylvia. Turn! He turns the egg timer on its end; sand falls through the tiny eye. He's timing Sylvia's hair: thirty turns of the egg timer then she rinses out the dye. Roots are tacky, she said.

He sips his apple juice, thinks about smashing the glass, letting the sand pour out on the table. There's nothing to do, he says.

Only the boring get bored. She touches a drip on her neck. Anyway, you're helping your old mater.

What's a mater?

Turn the timer. Me, your mother.

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An itchy, Sunday sort of question rose in his throat. Why don't I have any brothers or sisters? The sand stopped trickling.

Well, it just never turned out that way. Her answer had unhemmed edges.

But we might run out. We might become extinct.

Sylvia stared at him. What the hell have they been teaching you?

It's better if there's more of us, in case we die.

We're not going to die, Federico.

He takes another sip, flushes the juice round his mouth. A sudden pressure builds in his nose like dynamite. He sneezes. Juice sprays from his mouth like a burst pipe, covers the air, then the table. Sylvia's face goes red. Her head doubles over and her body shakes. He realises she is laughing. And he laughs too. They fall down the day's stretched neck.

The moment before light disappears

Lying on the sofa, he likes to peer into the gaps between the cushions. There it's dark and smells of dusty polyester. The inside is lined with black cotton quilting. Sometimes he finds lint, handkerchiefs. On a lucky day, a silver coin. Sometimes the sofa is a small deserted island where he must eke out an existence with a knuckle bone and a fishing rod. Between the middle cushions the lining is torn. He looks into the sofa's inner workings, springs and plywood boards, crumbs from the cheese-on-toast he and Sylvia eat on Sunday nights.

Sylvia puts her plate down on the coffee table.

Eat your crusts, she says, eyes fixed on That's Country. She takes a smoke out of its box. He has rolled those cigarettes under his nose, sniffed their sharp minty smell.

I don't eat crusts, he says, looks her in the eye. He watches her breathe in deep through her nose, nostrils white and twitchy.

Fine then. She takes his plate off his lap and walks out to the kitchen.

He does not run after her or cry. That woman is not his real mother. His real mother is luminous with mystery and power, knows that crusts are not for consumption, howls through the pylons at night page 96calling for her lost son. That woman stomping round the kitchen is a temporary measure, soon to be destroyed by dark forces.

He picks Sylvia's pink lighter up off the table, flicks the steel round and ignites the gas. Flame rises to a peak, orange with a blue centre. He moves slowly to his stomach on the couch, carries the flame delicate as bone china. Switches the flame low and high, low and high. The metal heats up, hurts his finger. He releases the gas, the flame disappears.

On TV Ray Columbus introduces Miss Suzanne Prentice. She winks at the camera. Federico thinks she is beautiful, her shiny gold top ruffles round her neck, and her hair blow-waved into voluminous parts. Miss Prentice holds the mike loose and thumps her fist in the air. She sings, Life ain't nothin' but a funny, funny riddle, thank god I'm a country girl.

She could be my real mother he thinks and flicks the pink lighter.

He puts his fingers down the side of the cushions and touches a coin, large as a fifty-cent piece. He edges his hand and the lighter inside the gap, flicks the steel for a better look. For an instant, cotton, springs and plywood are brightly lit—a silver coin glitters, there's a sound like wind channelling a tunnel and flame leaps up the back of the sofa. Federico jumps up, drops the lighter at his feet and watches fire spill over the cushions and arms.

Never has he witnessed such perfect lack of hesitation. Inside the boy, time slows down, halts. Grey-black smoke lowers. The room, sofa and fire become distilled as an image, loose brush strokes in an oil painting. This is the moment before light disappears.

Flames rise up to the ceiling, dance under the plastic light shade round the light bulb. Above Federico the bulb shifts and cracks, an explosion of glass and electrical sparks fall on his head. Flame moves down the sofa legs, foam starts to drip onto the floorboards. From what seems to be outside the house he can hear Sylvia screaming, then her hand wraps tight around his wrist, time twists and rushes. A fiery tap at his woollen socks. Sylvia wraps her arms round him, carries him from the room slamming the door shut on the hungry flame.

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Everything was singing

All the birds on the washing line

All the young fishhearts

All the young fishhearts

All the babies in bibs

All the steamy train drivers

All the nuns in the flour aisle

All the paper scissors rock

All the small bones of the hand

Pyrogenic

Federico dawdles home. Outside their house, builder's paper flaps loose in the wind, lifts at one corner so he can see into the black hole. The fireman said he was very lucky not to die. Sylvia said he was lucky she paid the insurance or they'd be out on their bums. She wore her deep red variety of anger for him most days. Her voice fell round his shoes. He watched Bea, who said nothing.

He sits down on the front step and picks up a handful of stones from the driveway. Martin, the train-boy, is chugging his way home from school. He stops at the gate and waves at Federico. What are you doing? says the train.

Nothing, says Federico.

Martin turns his head clockwise, squints at sky. Once my electric blanket caught on fire and I had to sleep in our sun room.

So. Federico aims the little stones at the birdbath in the centre of the lawn.

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Birds don't eat stones, says Martin. Federico ignores him, keeps throwing the stones in the water.

Do you want to be my carriage?

No.

You could be the stoker.

You're not a train, Martin. You're mental and everyone knows it. Martin keeps his head down and kicks the gate lightly with his foot.

I am so. I'm the best train. He looks Federico in the eye and toots, then chugs off. Federico stays on the steps listening to him fade down the street. At the corner the train gives a long slow whistle, then is gone.

Summer

The face of the world was changing. The browns of Mana Island, the endless blue—when did these things arrive? It was as if someone had let more light in.

He sits on his towel and digs a hole in the sand to plant his feet in. Sylvia lies on her stomach, adjusts her bikini every half hour. Bea and Mr Flood sit under the DB sun umbrella. They play blackjack and smoke.

It's a rare, windless day and the sun's at its flying height. Further out through the salty haze, the sand bank is rising. He can feel his pale skin absorbing the sun, his whole body reddening, as if under a grill.

Time Tables

Federico thinks about double entendres. Just learnt about them—a woman walks into a bar and says I'll have a double entendre so the barman gives her one. He's not sure he gets that, but Mr Flood laughed and told him he was comic. No bum steer here—the butcher's ad. The clock ticks. He looks at the teacher with her hair in plaits. Greasy ropes held with rubber bands. She looks wrong. He looked at the old school photos that line the assembly hall. She looked wrong in 1969 too. A face tired of children. The class piano is missing a note. Every page 99time she inches her hand down the right side her fingernails make a dull tapping sound on the key. She just keeps going.

Today is Times Tables Test. One to twelve. He looks around the room for answers. What makes one, one? Who decided one should be one and not two? Jonah clicks his fingers and writes. Shhhh, someone whispers. Inside Federico is a boiling sea of numbers. He looks at Tina. Her numbers roll out orderly, she always reminds him of smoothed bed sheets. Even the pencils in her box have all their lead ends laid together. Once he told her she would make a good nurse. No teeth marks in Tina's pencils. She looks up, scowls at him. He feels messy. The clock's small hand taps forward. Teacher blows her whistle and says, One minute, class! All that old teacher spit building up inside the whistle. She never smiles at him and he's given up trying. Sylvia told him she was a netball bitch and any teacher that uses a whistle in class needed a kick up her bum. He thinks of more jokes for Mr Flood. My other car is a broomstick. No, that's not a double entendre it's a

loud screech in his ear: Times up!

Childhood was wearing thin at the knees

They sit on the tiny hill in the Maori park. Lit cigarettes in their hands which they sometimes bring to their lips. They look out on the dim horizon. Robert says he read in Hayley's diary that she'd done it. Nah, says Federico.

Robert shakes his fringe over one eye and shrugs. They talk about college. Robert is complaining because his Mum says he had to go to Scots. They've saved hard and there'll be less chance of trouble. Sylvia told Federico he could go where he wanted as long as it wasn't Scots because she wasn't taking out a mortgage for him. Bea said, Why does he want to grow up so fast? Robert says he is going to be in a band. It's like in the Cure song—it all amounts to nothing. Federico isn't sure what Robert means but he nods. She can't make me go to Scots, says Robert.

Nah.

Two girls come in the entrance of the park. Sarah's hair bounces on her shoulders as she walks. Rachel wears hoop earrings. Robert is page 100going round with Rachel. Rachel said Sarah likes you, says Robert. He blows all the smoke out of his mouth quickly. Something ignites in Federico's chest.

Hi Robert, says Rachel. Hi Federico.

Hi, the boys say together.

There is a lull in the conversation. The girls stand with their hands tucked in their backpack straps. Federico rubs his feet on the stones, unsure what to say next.

Well, we're off to the dairy, says Rachel.

Cool, says Robert.

The girls turn and walk away slowly. Robert lets out a low whistle, which sounds nothing like what someone in The Cure might do.

Stale bread

Bea's centre wasn't holding. Her legs were swollen and she coughed like a lawn mower choking. Federico found a thick lump of phlegm in the kitchen sink, stuck to the bone handle of a butter knife. His stomach contracted and heaved. He turned on the hot tap and washed the glob down the plughole. The doctor visited and said it was better if she kept her legs elevated. He looked at Sylvia when he talked. Federico found a few short planks behind the woodwork room at school and built Bea a block to rest her legs on in bed. He nailed a pillow to it. Sylvia said she didn't know he could be so useful.

At dinner Bea's sausages lie on her plate, cut up and pink in the middle. Federico talks about the camping trip his class is planning. He tells them about how breakfast can stop hypothermia and how to build a tent from trees and leaves and can they buy some powdered mashed potato to try? Bea holds her hand up to his chatter like she is stopping traffic and looks at Mr Flood.

Remember Victor's funeral, Sarsfield?

Mr Flood places his hand over Bea's. Yes.

Bea shakes her hand free and touches her cheek. Those dreadful colours they used on his face. They must've worked off his Cabaret photo. Her eyes go out of focus. She stands up and leaves the table. Sylvia and Sarsfield chew slowly and stare at their plates.

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Federico finds her standing in the living room, hands lightly rubbing the backs of the new chairs. She doesn't look at him till he stands beside her and then she says, I'm like stale bread. Her eyes are dull sea sponge, watery in the corners. I have no weather left. He opens his mouth, but no voice comes out. She turns and brushes her fingers across his temple.

Mr Flood and Sylvia are whispering in the kitchen. Static floods his ears, the sound that comes before tears. He thinks about the moment of dying. Robert told him about mushroom clouds and bones crumbling in the street but Federico has imagined his own ending to the world. It's a scene by a man-made lake where all the families are walking their dogs and children, smiling, with kites in a blue sky. Then the oxygen starts to rise out of the air, so the short people fall first, their faces turn purple from shock and no air to breathe. They crumple to the ground and the babies freeze in the pushchairs and the dogs on their leads. Then the tall people will know what's coming. They will realise, as if they had known all along, that life will drop where it stands.

Later, he presses his ear against her bedroom door, hears Bea cough then gasp for breath as if deep roots were being wrenched from inside her.

Mrs Peachum

Every afternoon he flings the front door wide, drops his bag in the hall. Tea, Bea! And she rings her silver bell.

He pours milk into the fine china, strains the tea, and hands her the cup. The skin of her strong hands is spotted purple; wide fingers with thickly ridged nails clasp the saucer. Her legs won't stand anymore but her hands never shake. When we were little we always took sticks into the paddocks to scare the magpies. I was terrified I'd hit one. First time I saw Sarsfield I thought he was a magpie. He was playing Peachum, the Beggar King. I saw him on stage and it was like the roof got torn off the building. She takes a sip of tea. He wasn't interested at first. Sarsfield always wavered between men and women. Federico pretends to study the rug. Love and sex. She waves her hand in the air. page 102 The thing was he couldn't really sing, but he was a terrific liar and people like to believe things, don't they my love.

Outside a protea taps the windowpane. The bedroom walls light up. Bea puts her cup down on the bedside table. Shift my legs will you darling. He pulls her bedspread covers back. Bea's swollen legs stick out below her white hem. Puffy ankles and veins clumped together in thick knots, root-bound round the bone. They seem to want to grow above the skin. He gently lifts her right leg up and bends her knee, holds it and moves the ankle round in slow circles. When both legs are stretched he moves over to the window sill, breaks a leaf off a large aloe plant and rubs the cool stretchy fluid over her ankles. He replaces the covers and takes the now cold tea from her hand. Bea's eyes are closed but she's singing,

You're sometimes glad to pull your panties down,
there are times when you'd be mad to tell him no,
once you've met him
you won't forget him,
so never ever let him go.

The light that morning was faded like an old bedspread

He opens his fingers and holds them up to the window, squints as light pours round the edges. If only he could see inside, watch the blood circulate.

The hospital smells of over-boiled vegetable soup. Sylvia's gone to get him a sausage roll. He said he was hungry so she would leave them alone. Federico turns back to Bea's bed. Lit up in soft gold, she might be asleep.

What is the song to sing to her? Bea always sings to him and he listens, he never thought to sing back. Federico clears his throat and stands away from the window. He sings.

I'd like to be
under the se
in an octopus's garden
in the shade.

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The doctor's shoes had squeaked on the gleaming lino. Black shoes with symmetrical patterns punched in the leather. He turned Bea's head, delicate as a baby. He turned it back and placed it on her pillow. Then he closed her eyes.

A giant wave

Before her legs got bad, Bea was always writing in a book. He asked her once and she said she was explaining her interior life.

He found it while he was looking in Sylvia's room for spare change, stuffed in a brown envelope under her bed, an explanation for everything—

A giant wave covered the house,
turned cars upside down.

They found human bodies
on the shore. Fallen trees.

Everyday my breath draws
closer to the surface.

The sea moves inland or
the shadow of the sea moves inland.