he took his boy
down to the water
alone in that salty
white sun
and sat on the washed- up concrete
touching the sand
before bicycles and old ladies
with their flowery dresses and their
tinkling bangles
and wide swaying hips selling
their mangoes from a cardboard sign
and the boy went into the water
blackening his shorts
ribs tight beneath his ebony hide
and ran up against the shore
casting his arm like a shakespearean
bitten fingernails cupping
as his brown hands and scored fingers
dripped with the sharp *** of seaweed
he had brought for his father
with nothing else to do
on the monday afternoon