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foundationwashed awaywith the tide. My best friend had a house that lost
itsfirstfloor. Whentherewasnothingelsetodo,weusedtocatchcrabsat the
lake and rush to her house and cook them for lunch. She used to complain
about walking the two blocks to the beach fromwhere I lived, and I used to
complainaboutgoingtothebeachsooften. Nowthebeachwaseverywhere,
and nowhere. I picked up a shard of her blue window and went away.
The worst was the silence. No carols in the houses for the coming holidays,
no buzz of excitement for the New Year. No one laughed and no one smiled
– you don’t when you’re at a funeral. The only sound I could hear was the
eerie creak of the lifeless houses, as if they were shivering as the gusts of
wind pounded their cracked walls.
I scrambled my way to my own pile of a house, gawking at the surreal
splinters of plywood and strewn insulation that looked too much like
spilled guts. A red X was spray-painted onto our pink door, displaying
to the world the destruction that waited inside. We found a kid’s jungle
gym in our backyard, wedged between our flooded garage and cracked
fence. We didn’t know whose it was, but we also didn’t have the heart
to throw it away, imagining the child sitting in his yard of sludge with
no swing set. I looked around for Dr. Farmer, expecting him to be deep
in a pile of macadam searching for Lily’s newspaper. But, Dr. Farmer’s
house had swum away. Mom came out from our sunken garage and
shooed me away, afraid I would fall into one of the sand pits sprinkled
around the lawn. So, I shuffled in the direction of where it all began.
Hiking down to the ocean’s edge, I gazed into the blue. The pure white
foam tickled my feet as the sea swayed back and forth. Sand dollars and
pieces of sea glass sprinkled the coast, and I could hear the calm lapping
of water against the jetty. At least some things don’t change. My hand
wandering, I found the shard of blue window in my coat pocket, drew it
out, and flipped it over in my hand, its rough edges glinting in the setting
sun. Blue sea glass is quite a treasure in my town. It’s made from rubbish
discarded into the sea, but it’s a sort of art all the same. The ocean
sculpts the broken into beauty, trash into treasure. I hurled the shard
into the sea, promising to find it next year. Next year it will be perfect.
With a plop, the glass dove into the water and disappeared into the
unpredictable ocean beyond.
Emma Ronzetti
If there is a god, he was unjust
in the creation of the cat and koi.
Though scientists say
they came from the same nerve,
and split into
two nodes,
one shielded by luck
which stuck
like the flakes he is now thrown daily by new gods
and polished into pristine scales,
tipped only by the weight of their beauty
while the other limped away,
growing dark as to hide from those
who would otherwise shoot him and his brothers in barrels,
weak, limping, left behind.
The catfish grew into mud by necessity,
aged by the stress of predation
as his whiskers now brush the grime
all he can do is gaze up at the blinding flurry
flying high above.
And should the koi look down
at the struggling mass,
desperate for recognition
if not life itself,
all that he sees,
all that he can possibly see
is the lesser,
the one who simply
did not try hard enough.
SeanMeagher