Strays Living near the Saint John’s River My fathermark could be a drawbridge, slowly raising over stillwater—splitting himself for a beam and faded, inglorious flags. Every wayward barge in the marsh sidles-up drunk in the daytime—he scrubs his head in a clawfoot washtub while Mozart levitates Elise above a frozen pond. Thomas Street neighborhood strays, the addicts and wildcats, splay on his loveseats and rockers as invisible X marks dot the mango-violet horizon. First time I gathered her fuzzy, little striped lump of a body in my rough palms, she was all cough and bone. Tigress descendant, puff with a knack-for-dozing under tables, the royal kind of rare beast made for psalms or rhymes. After a few, luxuriant weeks of canned tuna and horse, we blew fat as basketballs, slouched and lumbered like buzzsaws humming lullabies for the Lazarus cicadas. Where we’re living now, people disappear—die and get found. ...