print of a hand?
A print of a hand.
A cannibal’s for sure.
Or a monkey’s. There’s the palms here for them.
The belt of the earth is higher than this, and monkeys winter in places warmer, or I would.
No footprints, just these marks of a body dragged behind. Another like you, legless.
We must find and succor him!
And share rations? The sea almond splits only in two. You were right, it must be a cannibal’s.
Hanged.
Oh, why couldn’t we be put ashore according to the rules, with a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and a pistol with one load? Why did we have to burn and sink? Why this bird—
When the rain comes, you’ll catch it in your mouth in the midst of your caviling. Me, I’ll find a cup in a shell.
To the cannibal then, we’ll toast him.
16
So—the hand was yours. Why, why, why do you follow us? We’re but lost lads ruined from greed with nowhere to go even if we change one island for another.
I chase you best through water.
Without your cane you will not gain on me here on land. Except that we are marooned. But for a drink of water, I could use the water.
Rest your wants. The parrot knows the way to fresh water—that’s why you should heed it.
My brother will kill the parrot first and drink its blood.
Tell him the cannibal sent it and if he lets it out of his sight, it will squawk to the cannibal of his fire.
He thinks the cannibals are roasting his leg. Every night he wakes screaming that the other leg’s gone and bades me to touch it. For him I concocted a salve from a plant as I cut from the shore. Except for the bird, he is better.
I’m sorry that the bird recites “Hanged” so willfully. He must have been cheap, that’s all I can say, with a teacher not so skilled as I. I would have taught him “Water.”
Oh, for a lime! Get us off this island now, we are bound to this sand and tree and its almonds. Oh, but for a few fish.
All I can do is follow and wait until you will follow
me. Our father despises you every day for not choosing the sea, for locking yourself to the land. Feel around your neck.
I have no gills if that’s your meaning.
The mixing of the races does not always come true. Pity. But the sex is always sure. You’re my sister.
Don’t touch me there.
After Peters caught me, I sang the wrong pirate off the gallows. When first a creature like me comes up out of the deep, all humans and time are alike. I knew you to be a pirate, just not where. After you slipped me your brother’s name signed by you, I knew you better. Except you were male. Show me your females.
I will not.
I will swim beneath the poop deck.
Not that! It is hard enough.
Together we will tell Father you have returned.
I know nothing about this father. Leave me be.
He is the father you seek. Didn’t your mother tell you?
My mother told me of many fathers, none wishing death upon me.
Although Father is not weighed down by gold and other appurtenances, just by the fishy depths, the pirates so often cannot keep their ships afloat even on sunny days and their treasure sinks to him of their own accord.
All of that treasure is his?
And yours, by way of family, with the squabbles that attend it.
I can’t breath underwater.
You haven’t tried. Gill/girl. It’s just a slip in the writing. Let me teach you exactly how they come together.
Oh, no—that’s a lesson I don’t want.
Two sister fish we are, and one knows the ways of the shore and can sing a sailor to the very brink, and one trails her hair the way they do, until it catches a sailor.
I have heard the singing when I press my ear to the hull. I have heard my own.
A pirate sees the hair in the tide before he swings, a true wild swag of it. He has to sing back quick or his nether part will grow longer and longer with him a’dangle on the rope. We are uncommonly clever about a man’s parts, as you will be too. You must come with me, for the love of our father who abandoned you because he could not stay.
The world is scarce of
A print of a hand.
A cannibal’s for sure.
Or a monkey’s. There’s the palms here for them.
The belt of the earth is higher than this, and monkeys winter in places warmer, or I would.
No footprints, just these marks of a body dragged behind. Another like you, legless.
We must find and succor him!
And share rations? The sea almond splits only in two. You were right, it must be a cannibal’s.
Hanged.
Oh, why couldn’t we be put ashore according to the rules, with a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and a pistol with one load? Why did we have to burn and sink? Why this bird—
When the rain comes, you’ll catch it in your mouth in the midst of your caviling. Me, I’ll find a cup in a shell.
To the cannibal then, we’ll toast him.
16
So—the hand was yours. Why, why, why do you follow us? We’re but lost lads ruined from greed with nowhere to go even if we change one island for another.
I chase you best through water.
Without your cane you will not gain on me here on land. Except that we are marooned. But for a drink of water, I could use the water.
Rest your wants. The parrot knows the way to fresh water—that’s why you should heed it.
My brother will kill the parrot first and drink its blood.
Tell him the cannibal sent it and if he lets it out of his sight, it will squawk to the cannibal of his fire.
He thinks the cannibals are roasting his leg. Every night he wakes screaming that the other leg’s gone and bades me to touch it. For him I concocted a salve from a plant as I cut from the shore. Except for the bird, he is better.
I’m sorry that the bird recites “Hanged” so willfully. He must have been cheap, that’s all I can say, with a teacher not so skilled as I. I would have taught him “Water.”
Oh, for a lime! Get us off this island now, we are bound to this sand and tree and its almonds. Oh, but for a few fish.
All I can do is follow and wait until you will follow
me. Our father despises you every day for not choosing the sea, for locking yourself to the land. Feel around your neck.
I have no gills if that’s your meaning.
The mixing of the races does not always come true. Pity. But the sex is always sure. You’re my sister.
Don’t touch me there.
After Peters caught me, I sang the wrong pirate off the gallows. When first a creature like me comes up out of the deep, all humans and time are alike. I knew you to be a pirate, just not where. After you slipped me your brother’s name signed by you, I knew you better. Except you were male. Show me your females.
I will not.
I will swim beneath the poop deck.
Not that! It is hard enough.
Together we will tell Father you have returned.
I know nothing about this father. Leave me be.
He is the father you seek. Didn’t your mother tell you?
My mother told me of many fathers, none wishing death upon me.
Although Father is not weighed down by gold and other appurtenances, just by the fishy depths, the pirates so often cannot keep their ships afloat even on sunny days and their treasure sinks to him of their own accord.
All of that treasure is his?
And yours, by way of family, with the squabbles that attend it.
I can’t breath underwater.
You haven’t tried. Gill/girl. It’s just a slip in the writing. Let me teach you exactly how they come together.
Oh, no—that’s a lesson I don’t want.
Two sister fish we are, and one knows the ways of the shore and can sing a sailor to the very brink, and one trails her hair the way they do, until it catches a sailor.
I have heard the singing when I press my ear to the hull. I have heard my own.
A pirate sees the hair in the tide before he swings, a true wild swag of it. He has to sing back quick or his nether part will grow longer and longer with him a’dangle on the rope. We are uncommonly clever about a man’s parts, as you will be too. You must come with me, for the love of our father who abandoned you because he could not stay.
The world is scarce of
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