i. It is true I know nothing of the East save traces of loam in my feet that rooted themselves in a paddy field I might have called home, that I revile the rising sun whose crown bestrews consciousness with fantasies undone, but I have heard prayers like mice in the wall that skittered across the sea trailing thread and bread crumbs--a wake for their passing, their frenzy.

ii. They ran circles in the attic, pled with the rafters for hours on end to end their dizzy spells, to quell the ache in their paws as they ate into the floor. It was not long before they fell through the ceiling. Shorter still until they were aware of the distance then between them and the hand they'd never seen but over and again entreated.

iii. What am I to do with these feeble things--these tossed to the wind children of derelicts widows and civilian casualties? Set them to house chores, to humming, to stirring my rum and coke with whiskers that taste of the sea so I will know the soul of them in exhale as I sleep.