Cantaloupe rays interlace

     morning’s moist fingers

for an unhurried saunter.

     Each day seems the same

The house had been in her family.

Its back yard now a cut-through

fences pushed down flat

garage wall a graffiti canvas.

“‘Teacher, how do we know that there are no other humans outside the walls?’

He was dying, that much was clear. Rivai knew that these were the incomprehensible mutterings of someone already far gone.