Invisible tombstones float on the river. Proudly, the echo of snapping turtles filters through the trees. This is the dawning of the age of excoriation. Pulverized words, as sharp as diamonds, pave the sidewalks, and city towers call to each other through the night. A cold wolf’s breath clouds the windows of sex workers and poets, a like. How likely is it, that dolphins and swimmers will mate? Most likely it seems. A thousand barriers have been lifted along sea wall in South America – a continent with vast populations of dugout canoes.

Janet Hamill is the author of seven books of poetry and short fiction. Her eighth volume, Real Fire, a colletion of poetry and photographs in collaboration with photograher Richard Baron, is forthcoming in 2018 from Alexandria Quarterly Press. Janet is the founder and co-director of the MEGAPHONE Literary Arts Series at the Seligmann Center in Sugar Loaf, NY.