Katine wakes in a shaft of light, looks
for The Pirate, locates her by
the gleam of her three gold teeth. 
The Pirate is smiling at Katine, smiling
at the crescents of her body. 

This from The Pirate: 
You remind me of your father.
This from Katine: You keep saying
you knew him. Now
I’ve paid you.  Tell me.
     
             He’s a spider monkey.
     
             You mean he was good at climbing?
       
             No, I mean he’s a monkey- first
             genetic cross between Homo and Ateles.
                            
            That explains why I am
             so very fond of apples…     

             He and my mother’er very close. 
             When I was small, I caught --  
 
             I always wondered
              why I had a tail.

Katine’s tail moves to pull the coverlet
up her body.  The Pirate catches
its tip in her fist, squeezes and pulls
its tip in her fist, squeezes and pulls
Let me show you what this is good for
             (her words spark gold)

Part the Forty-eighth
In Which The Pirate is Delivered

fire on sand, unringed
      wails like gulls’ cries
     
a sea-eyed baby
speckled belly

ferny hair drying
      in fiddle-curls
     
mouth like a fish flung
to land
     
broken housings
beach glass       
alloy shards

a pulpy mass, severed cord
sharpened coin stained

      Katine’s tail cradling the new one
      against her hip as she stitches
      The Pirate back together
      with sinew and ivory.

Part the Fifty-Second
Wherein Things Rise Through

A craving for the dirt-dusted
For combing through with fingers and nails
Her face against the cruxes of bodies
Tasting of viscera, stamina – a cling of must and lemon
through an indrawn breath
Devouring overly things and the loving of the devouring
Smile as in the baring of teeth, the flashing of incisors
And she can tell you where fruit will ripen and when
She could go swinging swinging
through layers of leaves swinging