01 April, 2010

Fiddlesticks

Brightly colored plastic eggs and fresh squirrel traps
are hanging from the trees,
blowing carefree in the breeze
while the school kids,
on Spring Break, get in
all the play time they can
until its time for dinner
and talk about the new clothes
they must wear
when they go to Easter Service.
The gardeners are out mulching
and turning over tired dirt
and the obsessive lawn mower
is manicuring his grass

while the missus
is in the kitchen casually
dunking hard boiled eggs
in brightly colored dye
while talking on the phone
to her best girlfriend
who is going on and on about
that poor young woman who
hung herself last week
in the County Jail. Tsk tsk, they say.
Poor, poor girl, they say.
What would make anyone
missus begins… and a mother, too
the her friend says, only to interrupt
herself  So they
change the subject
to talk about spring hams

because one of them
nearly drops an egg
from the distraction of wondering
what such a fast suicide
must feel like
instead of the long slow one
necessary to get into Heaven.