The day we had to bury his baby girl,
David told me that there was no God.
He said he might later act like there was,
but it would be fake. There was no God.
I was too young to know what to say
so I said he ought to sleep for now.
I don’t know how I wound up alone
with him in the first place. I bet it was
since I was so young that he let me in.
His eyes grew heavy. I left his room
and found my mom and dad. They sat
with his wife as she told a story about
the girl who had just died like it had
been a long time since she had been alive.
My mom said, I’m sure she’s up there now,
and hears every word you’ve said.
I hoped David got to sleep, but if he heard
my mom talk, he didn’t start a fight about it:
he let the words pass, right or wrong,
just like I think God would have done.

Saul Nadatas last blog post..On the Train Platform

Pale green, it sat
on the side dish to the curry
among cool bits of salad.
Idly I chose it, and bit.

I felt my teeth melt
and my eyes pop
as the roof of my head blew off.
A swoop for the glass of milk
in front of the diner on my left,
and I drank it down in one gulp.

I never heard Bill laugh so much.
All those years I used to skite
about being able to eat red hot
chili, curry and the like.
It must have got on his wick
but I never knew till then.

Well, he had his gloat
and did he enjoy it.
It went on a long time after.
Until the night
our hosts in Java fed us
that very same dish.

I saw him reach out
for that cool green salad bit.
I kept my face blank.
I said not a word.

The next thing was the yell.
Then he leapt out of his chair,
which hit the floor with a crash,
and tore out of the room in tears,
his mouth wide open as he tried
to take huge gulps of air.

Yes – best to serve it cold.

John: Lovely! The instruction transcended, so the poem seems uncontrived and one feels it could only have been written in these words.

Rianon: Bravo for following your inspiration and joining us!

As for me, I am all out of sequence by now but gradually catching up.