In The Stillness, Sweating

Her slender hands,
workworn linger in a caress
on the head of the father
sleeping.
In this moment of stillness they float
together in solitude and
perfect silence:
sharing a moment
like two castaways on an island
they have reconciled and are working
desperately
to build something
but they don't know what:
land is infinitely beyond
their grasp, so it would seem
best to build a house and hope to one
day be discovered, in passing by
the same ships that delivered them
thence, hopeful once
and young.
But their island is uninhabitable, full of
coral snakes which their children will mistake
for kings* and when they, innocents
reach out with dreams of triumphant capture,
an easy win over one who merely plays at seeming evil
they will become stung
and, reeling, realize that although
their island is a paradise it does not have hospitals
it does not have antivenom.


The mother will sob as
toucans echo her sadness,
watching from a distance
the quivering of her shoulders.

She will wish she was dead as she watches
the father try to save her children and
get bitten too.



5.29.08
written for school