She digs a hole on the beach, relieves herself, and fills it up with sand.
She retreats into the caves that time and salt licked out of rock,
far into those midnight-blue recesses that only another child could reach.
She listens to the breaking waves and hears her father's words,
"The ocean will cure anything."
She cups her hands over her ears and in a timid voice says
"Anything." The word amplifies somehow and she begins to shriek
"Anything! Anything!" She falls into the rhythm of the chant
and clocks do not remember the hours that pass.
Suddenly the alarm on a police car peals through the night
like a knife across an apple. She is very fast.
She sprints on four limbs until she reaches the open air,
then like eyelids shuttering she climbs dunes
and beats her bare feet on Californian sidewalks
for three quarters of a mile.
Even the driveway smells like old whiskey.
She slides into her bedroom through the window and waits in fear.
She is sure her father will soon charge through the doorway
slurring curse words and incoherencies,
but now the night is quiet, calm as crickets.
As always, the sirens had been called for someone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment