This will hurt me...

Ezra is sorting through an array of shell, trying very hard to find the best one possible to throw at his father...

It's all happening on the down low. Clifton Beach, June 2011. I've long held to the maxim that the gutter is the best place to be, as the view of the stars is simply unparalleled .

Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and eleven. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and twelve. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and thirteen. Six million, three hundred and thirty-three... Hang on a tic, we'll be here a while.

There's such a lot to do. Sorting out these shells is just the start of it...

Shell sorting on Clifton Beach, January 2010. Here's one from way back in Summer, when we were forever at the beach. Remember the shells yesterday, here they are being sorted by the gang... In Childhood , by Kimiko Hahn things don't die or remain damaged but return: stumps grow back hands, a head reconnects to a neck, a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic. Later this vision is not True: the grandmother remains dead not hibernating in a wolf's belly. Or the blue parakeet does not return from the little grave in the fern garden though one may wake in the morning thinking mother's call is the bird. Or maybe the bird is with grandmother inside light. Or grandmother was the bird and is now the dog gnawing on the chair leg. Where do the gone things go when the child is old enough to walk herself to school, her playmates already pumping so high the swing hiccups?