Disorder
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Disorder
One night, one month Before leaving for Africa, A rat bit Father, he grew ill
And I grew ill from the smell Of sweat, his body turning On the cot as we waited
For his fever to end, Our passports ready.
Finally my mother called a doctor. He chastised her for waiting. Told her if she’d waited any longer, My father could have died, There would have been no Africa.
Inconsolable, she accused me. I had done it, possessed the rat.
It was comical. It was absurd. The beginning of doubt, Of obsession. It became true The more I thought it through.
Small and faint, I kept To the edge of her life. [End Page 899]
Vanesha Pravin is a lecturer in the Merritt Writing Program at the University of California, Merced, and has also taught creative writing at Boston University and ESL at the University of Southern California. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University.
