Carl’s congregation was long ago handed over to someone else,
as was his wife, who, as he put it, was a Jezebel, or
as she put it, “Could not compete with his god.”
He says “It is not a good year for tomatoes,” translation:
“There will be famine.” Before I leave, he hand gestures
like an excited surfer in loquat branches,
his long blond locks lifting in Pacific wind.
“See this forking? It means four horsemen
will arrive soon over the Asian crescent.”

As I leave, he is on the edge of the bed, rocking
back and forth, holding a framed photo of himself
holding his estranged wife.

Before working as a creative writing professor at San Diego Mesa College, Scott T. Starbuck was a charter captain and commercial fisherman in Oregon.  He was a 2014 Friends of William Stafford Scholar at the "Speak Truth to Power" Fellowship of Reconciliation Seabeck Conference, and a 2013 Artsmith Fellow on Orcas Island.