Gene Fox studied philosophy and literature at James Madison University and served for 10 years as a librarian for the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. He now lives on the south coast of California.

Posts By This Author

Hell's Belly

by Gene Fox 06-05-2013
A poem

Detail from "The Sea Stopped Raging," by Barry Moser, from Pennyroyal-Caxton Bible, 1999, used with permission.

From the midst of the nether
world I cried for help.
 —from the Book of Jonah

A gray whale blows off Cardiff Beach,
just beyond the glamour homes,
boutiques, and drive-thru windows,
valet service and all-u-can-eat sushi.
I want to swim out and be swallowed.

 
Jonah’s whale wasn’t Ahab’s, all
tripey white and peg-toothed, but
a strainer of phosphorescent shrimp,
which lamped the reeking gut, like
fireflies we swallowed once, in jars.