An African Outhouse After a Hurricane, Dec. 1983

by Apryl Fox
 
There was the smell, constant,
that spun with the lightning and rain:
a mixture of dandelions and worms.
 
The outhouse
was like a great flood.  Four walls, one little
room,
a toilet that leaked, water spewing everywhere.
It sat on the edge of a terrain,
looking down into a small animal graveyard in
Southern Africa until a hurricane blew it away.
 
All that remained was a roll
of wet paper towel
and a newspaper from 1979.
 
Even the old man who used it was gone.
The last time they saw him he was
humming a tune as he strolled down
the path towards the outhouse,
a magazine tucked under one arm.
He didn't seem to mind the rain
at all.

© 2005 by Apryl Fox. All rights reserved.

Apryl Fox is 22 years old. She has been published previously in Word Riot, The Southern Ocean Review, Snow Monkey, and many others, with a poetry chapbook forthcoming from Foothills Publishing.