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Topeka Radio Still Plays


I live in Topeka, Kansas. 


The sea has come back to reclaim its seabed. My house is at the bottom and outside my window is a neighborhood, encrusted day by day with more coral. A riot of colors, swaying fronds big as cars waving their slow greetings. 


Fish in so many varieties, like silvery and ocher waves. Some are big as SVUs that once plied up and down the street, ugly bulldog faces scrunching needle teeth as they prowl. 


There are other shapes, too, huge and black and hanging just above my view, illuminated from above by the sun. I shiver at their tremendous passage, catching glimpses: synchronized paddling flippers, massive torpedo bodies, enormous jaws yawning open in silent bellows. Others are mostly neck with small, graceful bodies at the end, twisting and weaving in primordial ballet. 


The radio still plays. So I sit, blinds open and watery light splaying across the living room, listening to whatever comes on.

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