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Table of Contents for Issue 14

This work first appeared in Gargoyle, issue #14. Please respect the fact that this material is copyrighted. It is made available here without charge for personal use only. It may not be stored, displayed, published, reproduced, or used for any other purpose without the express consent of the author or artist.

Crocodile Child

Darryl Wally

-UPI "A ... boy tumbled into a pit ... Saturday and a 14-foot, 1800 pound African crocodile snapped its jaws around the child's middle and dragged him to his death in a small lagoon."

The sign read: AFRICAN CROCODILE
(14 feet)
Aggressive man-eater
of legend and fact

Here
your reptilian skin felt my thud
my fall into terror--
the writhing
the brutal twisting across your lair of mud
the belly high, the slits wide
your teeth sing like an adrenalin cage.
Shaken side to side
in a backward carnival ride
snorting in morning light
we slide under an airless skin--
My bubbles rise . . . .
AHHHHHHHHHHHH H H H H H H H

Through eyes with translucent lids
slit in a fixed yellow grin
I see those searching above.
Over water with sticks & stones
transfixed in ancient fear
my mother cries out in birth.
My father slaps water to awaken his son.

I did not feel the release of teeth
the growth of scale & flexing tail,
I only feel a buoyancy-
a wingless bird
cold-blooded & unspoken
slowly rising to a surface that glows
but cannot be broken . . .

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