-
7: After the Storm
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
7 After the Storm In my dream last night I wanted to return to the "Heights," the small Midwestern town where I learned to free my soul from the clutches of others as I wandered the desolate flat unbroken blank terrain no one thinks to praise or compare to mountain, desert, or sea . . . , but what can a child do alone amid such extremes other than fall, scorch, or drown, whereas in the prairieyou can wander without fear of lion, scorpion, or shark, though man-of-war would be more akin to a child's nightmare, this child's anyway, since I'll never unremembcr how, after a night of feverish sleep in which every object in the room took on shapes familiar yet alien— the squall batteringthe Florida coast with its rapine, shaking the towering palm trees free of the hirsute, weighty, unattainable treasures I could not will to fall or crack open when I hurled them against a wall; I found a string of bloated, purplish, boneless bodies strewn on the sands I wouldn't dare touch no mattet how dead they looked to be but had to poke (and poke) with a long stick or small log, because deep down I knew they were only feigning death, resting up after the whirlwind, waiting, as mariners wait for wind, or a long wave to sweep them back into their clement, where they belong. 45 ...