Fabrice Poussin, "First Error," photograph, 2017
Fabrice Poussin, “First Error,” photograph, 2017

DEPARTURE OF THE ARK

    At midnight it was still chewing quietly on its anchor chain while the puddles meandering along the waterfront engulfed the chunks of watermelon we had thrown overboard after our farewell picnic.

     At two a.m., sound of the waterfront tugs suddenly flapping and churning. In no time we were roaring out through the roads, ready for the open sea. The noise gave us all a case of the vapors. The fluids boiled in our brains. Just when we had finally relaxed into thinking about nothing worse than chipped beef!

     The moon took on a distracted, uncomfortable look. The sky was ripe with reflections. Not yet visible, the jagged edge of the earth, out there where the ocean becomes a flume of falling water.

Land of the Free

     Do you remember the day when you buttoned up freedom for ever? “The bug is snug in the rug at last,” you said. Do you remember how the legs of the bug were flayed and abraded by a summer of crawling up and down the screen door? How the children stuck pins through the screen and into the bug, which rocked and swayed and fell backwards into the amber waves? How the rescue ship broke down and had to be towed? Our home certainly offered no refuge from sorrow.