A white-blonde boy

stands toe-to-wave on a surf beach

in Queensland, midwinter. He

has just dug from the shallows

a small, ruddy shell. Some kind of ark, perhaps
although the plump red-lipped

mouth—that cups his right ear, nibbles it, hisses into it

—and fetid stench almost class

the prize animal—crablike.
With his right pointer, he dings the dull

bell. Silted with sand, warm seawater swells his cheeks

to bulging, because he is a puffer fish.
And throughout the dinging the boy listens to the rollers

quaking through the stinger nets

as if the stinger nets are seagrasses, and the rollers

seeking out the grasses so as

to tell him secrets in hiding.