Up the Duff

And so it would seem she’d built a cocoon…

deep in the heart of her belly.

 

Don’t let her hands fool you.

Though her palms are soft and her fingernails manicured,

the labor endured during its construction took both sweat and strain

and twists of the body that left her gasping for air.

 

Yet truth be told,

were payment offered for the mortal production

one-half of the commission is all she’d know.

 

She only goes to church for Christmas and Easter.

In her fanciest high neck dresses and with bows in her hair,

she goes go to look after her soul,

in case He actually exists.

 

But she hit her bony knees on the cool tiled floor

In the middle of an inconsequential

and otherwise boring week.

 

In a torn and faded t-shirt and cotton white panties,

she prayed over the small blue cross

as it fell from her clasp to the ceramic squares.

Head bowed, fingers intertwined,

and with pointy elbows resting on slender thighs

she begged Him instead for the symbol of subtraction.

 

There was no answer,

no heavenly exoneration.

 

She trembled as she told the more tangible him;

the him whose boots had done the knocking.

He grinned like a fish at the news

and took just two days

to walk away in those same scuffed up boots.

 

Down the road,

and many documents later,

she reaches her hand out

to empty bellied boot knockers

and sterile silk spinners.

With a gentle smile and a soul at peace,

her concluding signature sends the signal.

 

Let the butterfly bidding commence.

– Sara McClung (1st Place in Poetry)