at first she’d thought it was her Chinese neighbor or maybe the Buddha on his mantelpiece sprawled out like that a swollen starfish caught in a net of red sand a Looney Tune who deflates when you poke it with your tongue crabs had made a nest in its ruptured esophagus (because everybody knows that the only thing left to do when you’re thrown out of a plane is scream (throwing straight-A students out of planes is all the rage now (that, and MacArthur Park by Donna Summer))) Sheba’s 8 still hungry and digging her knees into the bloated body’s back slapping it with a brute force that frightens the crabs out of its jaws if theoretically a little girl had the strength to resuscitate would the body thank her? would it wipe the salt from its eyes then kiss her cheek? would her mother even be so proud she’d apologize for scolding her? if you don’t eat your broccoli I swear you’ll disappear too if your father were here he’d slap you for being so ungrateful if you hadn’t killed him maybe if you hadn’t killed him but let’s be honest broccoli served alongside chops and ribs and your favorite piglet is hardly appetizing or fair and maybe her father would’ve slapped her, but at least a slap is sort of like a touch and at least a touch could be interpreted as love the body won’t respond even as the tide wrestles it from her in the end Sheba’s mother won’t praise her so she wanders the shrinking beach a gun tucked inside her Sunday school dress wondering if when she disappears too will she soak up the sea like a sponge and be found by some other little girl who wouldn’t eat her vegetables either then it hits her earlier and harder than anyone had hoped maybe crabs and ocean water are filling after you’re put in a position in which the only thing left to do is scream