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The Mission Olive | p. 3 |
Mosquito Spawn | p. 6 |
The Bats | p. 8 |
Moon Jelly | p. 10 |
Jose Mendias | p. 11 |
Bliss | p. 12 |
The Weaver's Error | p. 14 |
Cleanliness | p. 17 |
Traveler's Advisory | p. 21 |
Beach Bum | p. 23 |
The One That Almost Got Away | p. 24 |
Corcovado | p. 26 |
City of Refuge, Kona Coast | p. 29 |
Snake Farm | p. 32 |
The Monarchs of El Rosario | p. 34 |
Tarantula | p. 36 |
Vacation in Stone Harbor | p. 38 |
My Ex-Husband | p. 43 |
United Parcel | p. 46 |
Work Boots | p. 48 |
Idle Hands | p. 51 |
All the Rage | p. 53 |
Kindness | p. 55 |
Sushi | p. 56 |
Leopard | p. 58 |
Balkan | p. 63 |
In a Field Outside the Town | p. 64 |
After the Peace | p. 70 |
The Suicide Bombers | p. 71 |
The Aerialist | p. 73 |
Eyelash | p. 75 |
Midway | p. 76 |
Without a Sequel | p. 79 |
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The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
It's time, the day says, as it
always does, the coming rains
will rake them from the tree
if you don't first, the olives,
huge from months of purpling
like a hammerer's ripe thumb.
The lawn's peppered already
with the season's first windfall,
the flagstones bludgeoned where skins
have split open under feet
that track the ink indoors.
So I hobble, earth's butler,
up-ladder to the tree's great
relief, a plastic bucket
to receive the day's take.
My hand's small tongues grow blacker
in swallowing the dark fruit
dangling like gems of tar or
opulent mussels clustered
to some sea beast's restless
green and silvered mane. They thunk
into the pail like days
into a lifetime, bearing
down with the full heaviness
of their hidden gold of oil.
But though they've stuffed themselves
with sweet sun, still they taste
foul as bile - the faithless man
would surely chuck them. But
the patient man knows every
bitterness has its cure.
One fruit grower's handbook,
printed 1908, suggests
a broth of pot-ash lye, or
a months-long soaking in pure
well water, but the method
I favor's even older
than these words, passed down by a
people who knew how human
were the gods in all things, how
easy to manipulate.
Do nothing, they say, but leave
the new moons to wrinkle
in a colander, pomaced
in a mound of plain sea salt.
In two weeks' time, they'll forget,
as we all do, the source
of their hearts' pitched burning,
lose it in the harsh tears
their bodies will rain as they
soften into succulence,
helpless to resist the sweet
waking of their pearl-black flesh.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Standing Wave by Gabriel Spera Copyright © 2003 by Gabriel Spera
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.