A Crab on Vargas Island - Mark Lavorato Sitting around the fire you asked me what I was thinking I said nothing which wasn’t true On my walk before dark I noticed something wriggling between two corrugations in the strand an orphan on the tarmac of wave-shattered shells It was lying on its back, legs kicking in a slowing battle to right its white belly globule eyes staring up into the sand Pinching one of its legs I hurled it out at the surf where it thumped onto the receding waterline upside-down again and left it there, tiny treadmilling the air in the dull sheet-metal light another waylaid error for the tide to make right sweep its sable-slate clean Yet it was just big enough to be something else I wouldn’t mention