"Annie, can you get me another box?"

Anastasia's Mother sneers, finishing her last stick. Sure she heard it, that's why she's running up the stairs to their old town house's roofs.

There, she saw the Mother of her life, stood moderately at the edge. Although her Mom looked homeless, with messy hair and wearing cheap clothes, Anastasia still thinks she's beautiful. From her Mother's pale and dark shaded lips, the picture of her habitual smoking and to the bags of her eyes. Anastasia saw sorrow and humiliation.

"Another box? But isn't that the third one this week?" She questioned. The concerned girl stared at her wasted Mother who just huffed at the moment.

"Just do it, baby." Her Mother commanded. A sigh escaping from Anastasia's mouth as she nodded in full obedience.

"Alright, Mother."

She walked down the steps again, reaching out for money from her own wallet as she headed out.

The wind is pretty frisky this day. The cold air fogging up the populated skies as its getting darker in the entry of the night. The breezy air is tugging at her skin, hugging her petite body. She doesn't have any thick clothing or a layer, nor a jacket to support her now shivering body.

She went to quickened her walking, knowing that her Mother won't be staying up the roofs sooner and the cold air is truly bothering her.

Finally arriving at her station, she entered the shop and she went straight to the counter.

"A box of Marlboro reds, please." Anastasia half smiled, waiting for the counter guy to get one. Once handed, she waited for her change as a boy around her age went beside her.

"A pack of Camel light, please." The boy with raven locks said.

"One-second sir."

She stays patient. She went to look at the boy beside her again, only seeing him looking at her box then to her. She decided to brush it off as her change is handed to her. Anastasia exited the shop to only find that the skies had turned darker.

She turned her heels to the same path to their home as she went straight back to the house.

■ ■

"Don't tell him a single detail about me." Anastasia's Mother said sternly.

"I'll see you soon, Mother." She replied. As soon as she has the chance to leave, she quickly did.

Walking out the door, she pulls a cigarette out from a pack that she got from her Mother's. She calmly lights it up, though she makes sure that she's going to the right path to the Boat Station.

That night, last night, her Father called. Her Father told her to come by the Ocean. She loves things like this, admiring beautiful places at peace and just having deep thoughts about randoms.

Since both of her parents are divorced, Anastasia has to spend her time separately with them. Although her family background is broken, she still believes that quality time is important. Especially when you're the only daughter.

When she arrives, she saw a bunch of males hopped to a Downeast cruiser. She went for another stick of cigarette as she waits for the guys to settle the boat.

Once finished, she sees her Father coming towards her as another man followed him. Seeing her Father smile, she knows that he is happy to see her, happy that her daughter finally visited him again.

"My dear, sunshine." Her Father greeted with the widest smile ever. As they both embrace each other, she reassembles herself and stared to her Father's features.

He didn't change much. Twenty percent of his beard had grown, his skin also went tanner and his noticeable bags underneath his grey eyes is an evidence that he has been working hard these days.

And she felt her heart spun a bit, it's not breaking but it's pinching with joy.

"I've missed you, Father." She spoke, voice cracking and eyes glistening.

Her Father went to cup his daughter's cheeks with both hands and smiled. She felt the warmth and the love to her one and only man, and that is her Dad.

"My apologies. Anastasia, this is Captain Adamson, he's our new lead sailor." Her Father added as he introduced the man beside him.

"Please to meet you, young lady."

"You too, Sir."

She looked up to Captain Adamson, he has the same features like her Father's. Same dry skin, oceanic eyes, firm and sturdy smile and just a typical sailor could be.

After a little talk, Captain Adamson and her Dad motioned her to get to the boat. Once lifted and settled, she saw old men and only men in the small place. She counted them, and in her calculations, they're about six or seven. But something spotted her eye...

A young boy, around her age probably, is one of the sailors. It surprises her a bit because she once thought earlier, she was the only youngster around here. But yet, she's wrong, but was she glad?

Feeling their boat move, she went over the edge as she let her body sway from her moving grounds. It was sure such a wonderful relief when they finally made it to the water.

She went to ignore the people around her as she decided to be alone at this moment.

At the edge, she swam through her thoughts. Deep ones like the ocean whom about twelve feet fall.

She thinks that what if the ocean is harmful, a violence and tolerant to other people. Like when you fall, you have nothing to do but to drown through the steep and heavy surface. Although its water, she can still think its a huge burden to anyone's bodies.

Her fears hugged her, her anxiety embraced her as she thinks of this. It made her shiver, not just from the wind but also to the awful life she has. It made her cringe once, now she'll cringe forever.

Grabbing another stick from the box, lighting it up as she blows one. She let the tobacco smoke combines with the coastal air, she watches it and she somehow feels satisfied.

Tapping her right shoe in a tune, she also hummed the unspoken lyrics, feeling the rhythm. She sips and blows, sips and blows, again and again. It doesn't seem to end, though her Father has its rules. Nothing she heavily worries about because she knew its always a mild segment.

After the stick has reached its filter, she flickers the used cigarette from the running waters as she lets out a sigh.

Casting a shadow beside her, she sees the youngster staring at her with an unexplainable look. He eyes her up and down in a respectful way as Annie didn't make a single move.

"You know, a filter can destroy the ocean too." The boy speaks. Anastasia shrugged her shoulders as she grabs another stick.

"So." She coldly said, though the boy sort of expected this coming.

"So its trash, it's not good." She rolled her eyes to the boy. A silly conversation about Nature isn't the right mood for the day today.

"Nope. I am trash." She chuckled like she's some kind of a joker telling puns whenever.

"I like that, Miss. My name's Keith Adamson, the--

"The Captain's son, I get it." She finished the boy's statement as a small smile form on her face.

"You do?" He questioned, playing it all in.

"Yeah, that's why you're so talkative about the waters." She shrugged again.

"Right, but I'm sure I've seen you before." The boy guessed and it clicked her head quickly.

"From the convenient store?" She grinned, making Keith nod in agreement.

There was a moment of silence in between them, did she care nor did she thinks its awkward? No. She went to lift her box from her pocket and motioned the youngster beside her. In her surprise, he gladly took one as she offers a lighter.

"So, Daddy sailor business?" Keith asks, giving Annie a small nudge.

"Not really, are you often around here?"

"You can say that. But why did you come here?"

"I don't think you deserve to know."

Anastasia's smile turned into a smirk, feeling her words with power. What does she call it? Sarcasm? Probably, but therefore, it's just the based truth.

"Feisty. Just so you know, I only come here to help my Father. Sailing ***** but I enjoy the ocean, a lot." Keith babbled as it made her nod her head.

"Me too, but not when you're in it." Her voice went weak as she feels her whole body become numb.

Heavy.

Heavy.

Just heavy, all are heavy.

"What do you mean?" The boy asked again. She knew she wanted to tell him but she respects her own privacy. Maybe she can, in a more intellectual way.

"Like the waves, they're a big struggle in a person's body. When you drown, you drown, why keep convincing yourself to dive up when you know its already too late?"

At this moment, she thinks about her Mother, her Father, and just the tree family she used to be in. The happy, normal and complete people, she misses that. Their silly moments and the happy memories, she wants it all back. Now that its ruined, damaged, broken, well name it. She still thinks she's contented. Why? Whatever god knows why.

"The waters are so much sweeter if the waves wouldn't step further like a hurricane, you know?" She smiled again. She then turned to her right, she sees her new friend with a confused expression.

"Wow, too deep to understand aye."

The both of them started laughing. At some thoughts, she's glad that she met Keith. He's so much more, She thinks he's more of a something.

"Everyone, get ready to sail!" A sailor's voice rung around the companied boat as they both of them got alarmed.

"Ready to fight the waves, Anastasia?"

"How'd you know my name, little sailor boy?"

Anastasia is not surprised that Keith knew her name. Many conclusions collided to her head but one resulted among them all.

"May I point whom your Father is?"

Without second thoughts, she nods her head. And she knows for sure, that she's ready to fight the waves.

“We make our meek adjustments,
    Contented with such random consolations
    As the wind deposits in slithered and too ample pockets.”

               Hart Crane, “Chaplinesque”

A footstool in the desert.
A napkin in the netherworld.
A coffee stain in the margin.
Perfumed remains.
Systematic garnish.
Dorothy Stratten climbing Mt. Suribachi.
My late father’s toenail clippers.
Pale clouds over Slauson Avenue on the day after the L.A. riots.
A rhetoric of purpose.
A philosophy of decay.
A poem written to an audience of one.

©David Adamson 2015

The office was in a building that
You wouldn’t have looked at twice,
In truth, it stood in a part of town
That wasn’t very nice,
The blinds forever were drawn down tight
And were thick with stains and dust,
I wouldn’t have sought a job in there
But I felt that I really must.

I was over a year on welfare, and
I knew that it had to end,
I’d lost all my self-respect, my car,
And I hadn’t a single friend,
When this came up in a tiny ad
On the supermarket board:
‘Be one of the Movers and Shakers,
Then put the Takers to the sword.’

My curiosity peaked, and I
Marched into the office grim,
An insipid girl was behind the desk,
‘You’ll have to talk to him!’
A man in an inner office sat
In a cloak and black cravat,
‘We’re needing another numbers man,
Do you think you’re up to that?’

I said I was up to anything
For I didn’t really see,
That there would be ramifications
And they would apply to me,
He showed me into an office with
A desk and a swivel chair,
Then pulling a ledger off the shelf
He set it before me, there.

‘Your job is to add up the columns
Putting a total to each name,
Remember, you’re only the numbers man
So you’re really not to blame.
Then when you get to five hundred, tear
The page from out of the book,
A man will be round to collect it,
Let’s just say, he’s Dr. Hook.’

I didn’t meet this mysterious man
‘Til I tallied up more than three,
A Johnson, Sands, and an Adamson,
And a man called Jacoby,
They’d totalled just five hundred each
When I tore their pages out,
And Dr. Hook slid them into a book,
I said, ‘What’s it all about?’

‘Never you mind, my lad,’ he said,
‘It’s better you didn’t know,
There are things that shouldn’t bother your head
Until it’s your time to go.’
But those names remained in my mind until
On watching the nightly news,
An Adamson died in a mighty wreck
And a Sands, from a faulty fuse.

I thought it might be a coincidence
And I put my mind at rest,
When the girl from work came visiting,
And she seemed to be distressed,
I’d thought that she was insipid, but
There was fire in her belly too,
‘You know that the guy whose place you took
Is dead…  So I’m warning you!’

She said that I had a page as well
In a book, kept under her desk,
‘If you saw your column, adding up,
I think you’d get little rest.
For every page you give Dr. Hook
I add ten each to your name,
With that score of ten, you’ll be just like Ben,
He lasted a year in the game!’

‘He’d started fudging the figures when
His number was creeping up,
I’d warned him, like I am warning you,
But it wasn’t ever enough,
An audit pushed him over the top
By adding a hundred points,
And the ten he’d skimmed then died with him
In that fire at the Pizza joint.’

My column is stuck, four-eighty-nine
At this moment, as I write,
I still believe I can fend it off
If I’m careful, keep it tight,
I sweat, while adding the figures up
Of a certain Dr. Hook,
His column tops five hundred and one
As I tear his page from the book.

David Lewis Paget

Mountains swell, knuckle, roll.
Foothills ***** and slide.
Canyons fold, streams bend,
Salt marshes wrinkle and sink.
These pagan forms alone gave shape  
To this valley before God’s people arrived.    

Not until the Saints brought  
Rectilinear rectitude
And wrote a grid into this arid soil
Did this place become the land of God.  

My parallel brethren,
North Temple, First South,
We will meet in eternity.

And now do I sustain the men
Who bear the Logos
From the mountain to the desert,
Past Saint and Mason, Catholic and Jew
And, unbending, reveal
That the straight line is an act of God.

©David Adamson 2015