THE NEXT DAY

THE NEXT DAY

The women awakened before it was light

and gathered together some things she’d need.

They found her there, curled on her makeshift bed,

clumsily nursing the child at her breast.

Her husband was still sound asleep.

 

Surely the men were crazy, all the commotion.

Angels and voices in the sky.

A warrior or a king, or somesuch

come to free them from their lot.

Well that was fine.

 

But here was the inexperienced mother.

They covered the straw with the cloth they had brought,

and settled the baby more comfortably.

They fed her the potion

to make the blood stop and the milk come down.

A few sparrows stirred awake in the rafters.

No sign of an angel anywhere.

MY IMAGINARY FRIEND: Prompt #39

MY IMAGINARY FRIEND

Prompt #39

The poor thing can’t sit still.

She cries a lot, wrings her hands.

 

I ask her to come outside with me

but she wants to sit under the table

 

in the dark. She wants to tell me

stories about the terrible things

 

that happened, or might happen.

She’s fussy about her fingernails,

 

the fit of her socks. She goes to bed

at the same time every night and rises

 

every morning at sunrise

or just before. She never has time

 

for anything important, and

she never does anything

 

trivial. I don’t take her anywhere

but she follows and precedes me

 

everywhere, asking, asking,

Who is to blame?

 

What do you want?
Who is imaginary? What is real?