Alcala 1972

the sun is hiding behind the clouds— low quicksilver clouds that hug the edge of the world and sit there patiently for hours, waiting for dark to advance and disguise their greed for land, the sand-pipers are there at the foam— children at their mother's breast, patient then impulsive then patient once again. elmer sandcrab chucks it all and heads for home a bubble for a doorknob the world for a bed. three hundred yards sea-ward (where the world screams for air and rises) a child plays with his mother, feeling her power, sometimes you know he thinks he's older brother to the sun uncle of the moon or some such childhood tale and looks at the clouds at the pipers at the crabs as ne ighbors not brothers, and how they laugh with good-natured smiles when he pretends to be so old. They've seen him oh so many times before play grown-up with his mother and then running with tears from her temper.

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