to be somewhere without a book on my person.  hard word this, hard word that, for the never arriving marble of grief.  to rename fish from the lobby window of a submerged hotel.  to let the water from my mother’s body but not before telling her god lives in me as long as my son is outside.  to have nothing but the mewing compositions of rooftop strays to keep me from becoming the devil your pen pal was fed to.  to die well.  die punctuated.  by imagery the drowning cull from years on land spent openly preparing the eaten, subliminal beast.