For The First Forty Days A Child

To Write About Someone Like Myself Would Be Very Limiting.

There Was Always, He Thought, This Pleasure Ahead Of Him, An Ace Of Joy Up His Sleeve So He Could Say You Can Do Anything To Me, Take Everything Away, Put Me In Prison, But I Will Know [her] When We Are Old.

She Lights A Match In The Dark Hall And Moves It Onto The Wick Of The Candle. Light Lifts Itself Onto Her Shoulders. She Is On Her Knees. She Puts Her Hands On Her Thighs And Breathes In The Smell Of The Sulphur. She Imagines She Slap Breathes In Light.

For The First Forty Days A Child Is Given Dreams Of Previous Lives. Journeys, Winding Paths, A Hundred Small Lessons And Then The Past Is Erased.

He Turns His Back To The Far Shore And Rows Toward It. He Can In This Way Travel Away From, Yet Still See, His House....he Feels He Is Riding A Floating Skeleton...some Birds In The Almost-dark Are Flying As Close To Their Reflections As Possible.