I snubbed established black, ankle length, grieving garb.
I scoffed at uncomfortable shoes, dark stockings with racy
seams dashing up my calves. I craved the color of lilacs, the
guise of grape taffy and lifeless lips. I craved sandals and
wriggling toes that could step across the soft dirt freshly piled
over her. I craved bare, unshaven legs, and the nostalgia of a 
simpler time. Unfortunately, in my graceless social milieu, they
don't make "big-girl" dresses in the color of cloudy day dawns, 
so, in lieu of lilacs, I traipsed through the throng of eulogistic and 
elderly in vernal green trousers and top, respectable heals with closed toes and nude hose. I seized my spot in the foreground 
of the despondent folds. I gripped her worn, sooty black, 
leather-bound Bible in my lap, its imposing weight forcing it to 
sink, then conform to the crevices of my inner thighs. Running 
fingers dug dust from the nooks of the word "Holy" and grazed 
her embossed name, as the important man of God spoke of petty, 
immaterial memories, none of which were his own. Whimpers in the 
back escaped into muffling mesquite bushes and West Texas Mountains.
It was a time when death became so common; there was little time to
mourn from one funeral to the next. And I sat there wondering if anyone 
had thought to cancel her regular Thursday hair appointment.

How delicate your tiny hooded caps
curtsey to each other
forming an undulating, magnificent
cobalt carpet.

How alluring your dainty charm:
brides and babies trample and squash
your fragile stems; one swift shutter
captures a perpetual memory.

I would like to gather all of you,
fill a white straw basket,
braid you through my hair,
strew your blossoms on my bed
and lie on the silky, sapphire petaled mattress.

Too short your stay with us,
too soon your cousins
begin to peek through,
pink and yellow, red and white
and weave you into their wild, waving patchwork.

La Sandia

Acabo de sentir
el movimiento donde
no había antes
me recuerda del sonido:
del ruido sordo de sandía,
rasgar la pulpa de la fruta.
Todavía no es niño
aún te veo
tú pareces
ondular como el mar
de carne
a veces rígido y duro
a veces plácido y blando.
Todo lo que nos separa
son tres pulgadas de carne
y la tristeza
cuando mi cuerpo
ya no será tu hogar.

I have just felt
a movement where
there was none before.
It reminds me of sounds:
thumping watermelons,
ripping the flesh of fruit.
Not yet a child
yet I see you and
you look like
a rolling sea
of flesh,
at times rigid and hard
sometimes placid and soft.
All that separates us
are three inches of flesh
and sadness
when my body
is no longer your home.

Vixen

With flaming red hair I
come with a vengeance.
Black dress, painted face,
pale skin, I am the girl
that haunts your soul. I can love
with great passion and tear
you down just as quickly as I lift you up.
My kiss is poison, the deepest venom
to weaken you slowly. I am the girl
with the innocent face,
the one you would never suspect.
The fiercest
one of them all.

The Last Voyage of Ivory Pride

Monday:
We haven't been able to see anything at all for the past several days; the fog's too thick. We weren't far out from port when we entered it, but Patanga hasn't been able to steer us out.

Patanga is a good captain, competent. He's good with the men; for the most part they follow him well. He doesn't understand why we've turned about in such familiar waters. It's eating him up inside to have lost us like this. I suspect he is turning to drink. He says there shouldn't have been a fog this thick near the coast, but look around, eh?

Everyone's been affected. Some have withdrawn, some have gone violent. Patanga had to shoot a crewman yesterday. The man was threatening to mutiny. Only one answer to that, really. Any good captain knows; mutineers get the bullet. Still, it shook everyone.

I spoke to Evelyn today at breakfast. She has inherited a large sum of money, and has decided to see the world. She is currently traveling with Mycroft Jones, the hunter.

Tuesday:
It's the monotony that's getting everyone unhinged. We look out and all we see is fog. The light doesn't change much, either, because of the weather. Even during the day, the fog's so thick we have to use the lamps to light the ship. Patanga assures us that we will get out of this fog, though, that these things don't last long.

I had lunch with Dr. Foster today. She tells me her research went well, but was still disappointed. She's been researching the Anake pygmy tribe, looking for similarities between their religion and that of the Aztecs, for which she found some evidence.

She was disappointed because all she was able to learn about, in depth, was the Singing man, a deity, who watches over children. There is a song Anake mothers sing to their children, which Dr. Foster tried to teach me. I couldn't get the tune of it.

She also, found a collection of fertility statues, which she hopes will bring her enough money for another expedition.
Evelyn found her boring.

Wednesday:
Martin wasn't there to play fiddle tonight. No one knows where he is. He hadn't shown up for supper and wasn't in his room. Marianne convinces Patanga to send out searches. They couldn't find him. Everyone's rather jumpy tonight.

Evelyn and I tried, but were unable to entice anyone into a game of bridge, so the two of us and Mycroft sat on the deck and reminisced about times we had in London. Something spooked Mycroft, though, and we all retired early.

Thursday:
One of the crewmen is missing now and still no sign of Martin. Worrisome.
Mycroft is getting very edgy and says he's hearing some sort of singing all the time.

Friday:
I sit in the common room, writing this. Patanga has just told us that the group he had looking for Martin and Richards, the crewman, hasn't returned. That's five now, gone.

The Frenchman said he saw something below deck, but he wasn't sure what. He was pretty shaken up. He said he fired at it with a carbine, but didn't think he had hit it.

Like Mycroft, I sometimes hear the singing, now. A few of the others do as well.

Saturday:
Mycroft suggested a careful search of the front cargo hold where the missing search crew had been sent and it was where the Frenchman saw whatever it was that he saw. Patanga agreed.

The Frenchman found some sort of mask down there during the search. It was in a shrine of shattered crates and human skulls (six of them.) They threw it overboard. They went to look for Dr. Foster, to ask her about the mask. She was found in her room, singing that Singing Man song to herself. She seemed otherwise catatonic.

The lifeboats are gone. Patanga decided that it was time to cut his losses, pile everyone into lifeboats, and row for shore as soon as the fog lifted. But, the lifeboats are gone. There was some speculation as to what could have happened.

Sunday:
This morning one of the crewmen saw whatever it was the Frenchman saw. He wouldn't say much about it. He just said it didn't move like anything ought to. He said he shot it, but that didn't stop it. He wasn't certain how he had escaped, just that he had turned and ran until he didn't hear it chasing anymore.

There are less than a dozen of us left. Patanga, Marianne, the Frenchman, myself, Evelyn, Mycroft, four of the crewmen. The Frenchman thinks we should try to hunt the thing down. Mycroft suggested barricading ourselves in somewhere, probably in the food stores. He thought that the derelict ship would be discovered eventually and we would be rescued.

Patanga and the Frenchman didn't like that plan. They figured we'd starve before anyone found us. And even if someone did, the salvage party would be killed by whatever had killed the others. The Frenchman suggested, again, that we hunt the thing down. He mentioned dynamite, if the carbines didn't work, though Patanga dismissed this as suicide, since it would sink the ship. Mycroft said he had some rifles for big game. Everyone speculated whether it was worth risking a trip into the hold for the rifles.

We tried searching Dr. Foster's room for clues, but found nothing.

Monday:
Is this Monday? Has it really been a week?

Patanga decided he would hunt the creature. He would take anyone who would go with him and try to retrieve Mycroft's rifles. From there, if they hadn't encountered it, yet, they would start the search.

Anyone who didn't want to go with Patanga could go with Mycroft and barricade the kitchen. One of the crewmen suggested just going to the helm and steering off due east until the boat struck shore. Patanga didn't like the idea, saying that whatever this thing was, it was best to keep it away from the continent.

Myself, the Frenchman, and two of the crewmen, Tauke and Thomas, went with Patanga. The rest joined Mycroft.
It got us on the way down. I don't remember much of the battle, such as it was, just a lot of running. Maybe it's best not to remember.

We all just shot at the thing, but either we didn't hit it or the bullets didn't hurt it.

It swallowed Tauke. Just opened up like a sack and engulfed him.

We ran. The Frenchman was lagging behind; he'd hurt his leg somehow. He died bravely. He was standing there; shooting at the thing as it rushed him, a stick of dynamite in his hand, lit.
The rest of us just kept running. I wish I had learned his name.
The explosion knocked us all down, but we got back up and started running again. I didn't look back, so I'm not sure where we lost Thomas, only he wasn't there when we reached the kitchen. I don't know if the French man killed the one rushing him or if there was more than one of them.

My deepest despair makes it difficult to go on, but I shall, there should be a record of what transpired here, though I pray no one ever reads it.

We found the kitchen empty, save for Marianne, whom someone had locked into the cabinet. She wasn't very coherent by the time we found her; it was difficult to piece together what had happened:

When it became apparent that the thing would get through the door despite the efforts to seal it, Mycroft had locked Marianne into the cabinet. After that, she had been trapped in the darkness and could only hear the others' screams. It looks like he had done the same to Evelyn, but her sanctuary wasn't as secure.

Patanga gave her a carbine to protect herself with, but she shot herself.

Tuesday:
Patanga has decided to keep the helm. He reasons that if it is hopeless, at least he can try and strand the creature in the middle of the ocean. He didn't think there was enough fuel to reach the Americas, so he set the Ivory Pride to head due west.

We'll sink before then; I think we've been taking on water ever since the Frenchman set off the dynamite (Patanga says his name was Chanoir and he fought in the Great War.)

Wednesday:
Seems like it's always just the fog out here. What kind of weather is this? And the rocking. I haven't told you about the rocking, have I?

I really hate the rocking, you know. It never ends. Used to make me sick, though I got over that.

Patanga is concentrating on the liquor cabinet, resolved to be quite drunk, and possibly unconscious, before the day is out. I stayed with him a while then retired to my cabin to write this account, as a warning, should anyone else find this ship. I wonder how much time I have left.

It's quiet now. There used to be all sorts of sounds, laughing, dancing, singing, music. Martin liked to play the fiddle.
Should someone find this journal, please tell my wife I loved her, and I am sorry I never returned to her.

Thursday:
I can still hear Patanga screaming.

Twenty More

Sir, as best I can recall, the first time I ever heard Tony talk about killing himself was around five weeks before his execution date -- just after his lawyer talked to him about his appeal. Tony came into the law library later that afternoon and his eyes were all red and puffy. You could tell he'd been crying. He knew then that his lawyer hadn't spent no time on his case and he asked me to look at the appeal his lawyer was going to file for him.

"Why me? Well, I suppose because at that time I had been working as trustee in the prison law library for about six years and he figured I knew the law about as good as anyone who he would ever be able to talk to. And plus he was a nice kid: good lookin', 18 maybe 19 years old, tried to keep out of trouble. He'd been coming into the law library ever since he got to death row --I guess that was about five months before he came in crying that day. I'd always tried to help him out when he was looking for something specific.

"No. No, I hadn't known him before he got to death row. Now when he got here we all knew who he was 'cause he was the first person to be sentenced under that new death penalty law.

"Yeah, that's what they called it -- the Victim's Justice Act.

"My thoughts about that law were the same then as they are now. It's flat wrong to give someone only sixty days to prepare their appeal and then make the appeals court rule on the appeal in another six months. Especially if you got a court-appointed lawyer who they pay maybe $5,000.00. I know for a fact there isn't a lawyer alive who can do a good job in a death penalty case for $5,000.00; it just can't be done for that kind of money and it can't be done in sixty days. And even if it could, there's a damn small chance that any appeals court judge is gonna have the time to really study the appeal in six months, what with all the other things they do. Half the time those judges are running for re-election, each one trying to outdo the other about how hard he is on criminals. So no, I didn't think too much of that law.

"You know, that's always a hard question. There's a lot of men that come through here and just admit what they done. And there's lots of others that don't admit it, but you know they done it. Then there's a few who you just don't know about; they don't seem like the kind of man to kill someone but you can't really be sure. Tony was one of those.

"Me? No. I don't believe he killed those people.

"There's several reasons. The first one is that it was Ralph Miller who testified against Tony at his trial. You know who Miller was, right? He was that lying asshole who worked at the medical examiner's office in San Antonio who they found out later lied for the cops on a whole lot of blood and DNA tests. A lot of people who were innocent got convicted because of him. At Tony's trial it was Miller who said that the blood on the knife they found at Tony's house matched the blood of the people who got killed.

"Well, if you have a really good lawyer and the judge let's you, you could re-test the knife. Not that it would do you a lot of good -- once you're convicted, it's almost impossible to get a new trial because some witness lied. But in Tony's case they couldn't even try to re-test the knife because somehow it disappeared at the District Clerk's office after the trial. And then there's a lot of things that just don't add up -- like two cops said they got thirty-six sets of clean fingerprints from the house where the man and his wife got murdered. But when it came time for trial, all of a sudden the fingerprints are missing. Now it's just not that hard to keep track of thirty-six sets of fingerprints. And if I remember right there was another suspect: several people had heard another guy threaten the husband that he was going to rape his wife. Now how come no one followed up on the other suspect? The cops never did and Tony's lawyer never did.

"What did I tell him when he came into the law library that day?

Well, I always try to tell somebody in that situation the truth. My feeling is they deserve it and they need to know it. Hell, their life depends on it. So I told Tony -- as nice as I could -- that the appeal his lawyer had given him looked like crap. Tony's name was misspelled, there were blanks all through it where the lawyer wanted Tony to fill in dates, people's names -- all kinds of stuff. It was just crap. When I told him that he started crying again and saying he didn't kill anybody but they were still gonna kill him and there wasn't anybody who could help him. It was sad.

"That was when he first told me he wanted to kill himself. Said he wasn't going to let the cops have the satisfaction of killing him and making him look guilty when he hadn't killed nobody. I didn't pay too much attention to him then. Just figured it was too much strain for that young a kid. But then he came back the next day and he had it all planned out. He was going to hang himself with his pants from a metal pole at the top of the stairs going up to the second floor of the library and he wanted me to just turn around and not watch. I tried to talk him out of it. That metal pole was a solid five inches thick and about nine feet off the floor. If he tied his pants to the pole and stepped off a chair,
I knew he could kill himself if he really tried.

"I did try to talk him out of it. But he kept saying what if it was me who they were going to kill? Would I want them to strap me down to a gurney with a bunch of people watching and then shoot me up so full of drugs I'd die? I could see I wasn't going to change his mind no matter what I said, but I also thought he was probably right. If he was innocent, what right did anybody have to tell him when and how he was gonna die?

"I figured I'd get into some kind of trouble. I was a trustee and my job was to take care of the law books and the library. At that time I'd been in prison seven years and four months and I was eligible for parole again next January. I hadn't gotten parole the last year, but I thought I had a pretty good chance come January.

"Tony wanted me to just turn the other way when there wasn't anybody else in the library. I couldn't leave because then one of the guards in the hallway outside the law library would come in. When I saw he was really gonna do it, I kept telling him don't, please don't do it. But then he took off his pants and went up and tied one leg to the metal pole on the second floor. That's when I got really scared and wasn't sure what I ought to do. He got a chair and stood up on it and tied the other leg of the pants around his neck and I closed my eyes tight and started praying, God, please don't let Tony do this don't let him hang himself save him somehow and then I thought, Oh shit, I am gonna get busted for this and be in here the rest of my life and I'm just about to get out next year, no, no, no.

"Then I looked up at Tony and he was standing on the chair with one leg of his pants tied up above on the metal pole and the other leg tied around his neck and he had his eyes closed and he was praying I guess -- saying something that I couldn't hear. And I remember he unbuttoned his shirt and put his arms behind his back and tied the shirt around his arms and hands as best he could. He almost slipped off the chair then and I ran over to grab him but he managed to keep his balance. I was just crying, and crying now. Tony said just turn around. I looked at him and he was crying, too, so I hugged him around the waist and turned around and started praying again. God, save him, don't let it hurt, what is going to happen to me. And then I pictured him swinging and kicking and his face turning blue, hanging from the pole and I turned around and looked at and asked him, But how am I going to know if you want me to help you? Just turn around he said really quiet.

So I turned around and I was crying and I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could. I was beating the books with my fists and praying, Please, please, please God don't let him die. Let him get out if he didn't do it. Don't let it hurt. Then I heard the chair kick over and I smashed my head into the books on the shelves, pushing as hard as I could to keep from turning around and seeing Tony. I grabbed that bookshelf and squeezed with my arms to keep from turning around until I thought my arms were on fire. I heard him gagging and struggling and I started to save him, but then I just pushed my face in the books as hard as I could and prayed, God let it be over. Don't let it hurt. Save him or take him now.

"I guess I fainted but a few minutes later I felt my head pounding and I saw blood on the floor where I was slumped down by the bookshelf. I remembered where I was and I prayed God, please don't let it have hurt him. Please pain. And after a few minutes I got up on to my knees and looked around the bookshelf at Tony hanging from the pole but he wasn't hanging. He was sitting on the floor by the chair, naked, with his arms still tied behind his back and his pants hanging from his neck in front of him. I said Thank you God. Thank you. Thank you and I asked Tony what happened.

"Well he said that he had prayed and then closed his eyes, took a big breath and then kicked over the chair and expected to feel a big jerk on his neck -- actually he said he didn't know if he would feel a jerk or if it would just snap his neck -- but instead it just felt like somebody was holding him in their arms and letting him down slow and he kept his eyes closed because he didn't know if he was dreaming or not and when he opened his eyes he was sitting on the floor next to the chair.

"That's when I knew Tony was innocent. And that's why I'm in here for twenty more years.