for myself

I am twelve, of course, and fat, and faithful. The night speaks to me during a meteor shower across the mountain skies, says, “I Am.” Or from the center of a log fire, as the embers pop and settle and the flames draw the skin of my face tight. Like Moses, I hear, and marvel.

We travelled for hours to the ocean, and slept boys in one room and girls in another. The pipes vomited rusty water and air but eventually the taps ran clean and we drank, our throats soothed and toughened by the taste of metal. In the afternoon we pray, and separate. It is raining; water through the tough seagrasses sounds like static. We are alone, and I climb to the top of the cliffs, those western cliffs where the wind only blows inland, and sit there with my legs hanging over the side.

Over the ocean it is raining, too, and farther out the clouds break and sun shines on the water. I sit there while the day turns, getting wet, listening to the ocean and the rain; when the sun finally drops beneath the clouds a human voice calls me in to dinner.