Little Exercise

For Thomas Edwards Wanning                                Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasilylike a dog looking for a place to sleep in,listen to it growling.

Think how they must look now, the mangrove keyslying out there unresponsive to the lightningin dark, coarse-fibred families, where occasionally a heron may undo his head,shake up his feathers, make an uncertain commentwhen the surrounding water shines.

Think of the boulevard and the little palm treesall stuck in rows, suddenly revealedas fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons.

It is raining there.

The boulevardand its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack,are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened.

Now the storm goes away again in a seriesof small, badly lit battle-scenes,each in "Another part of the field." Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boattied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge;think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed.