Parable

Sandra Beasley

Worries come to a man and a woman.

Small ones, light in the hand.

The man decides to swallow his worries,

hiding them deep within himself. The woman

throws hers as far as she can from their porch.

They touch each other, relieved.

They make coffee, and make plans for

the seaside in May.

All the while, the worries

of the man take his insides as their oyster,

coating themselves in juice - first gastric,

then nacreous - growing layer upon layer.

And in the fields beyond the wash-line,

the worries of the woman take root,

stretching tendrils through the rich soil.

The parable tells us Consider the ravens,

but the ravens caw useless from the gutters

of this house. The parable tells us

Consider the lilies, but they shiver in the side-yard,

silent.

What the parable does not tell you

is that this woman collects porcelain cats.

Some big, some small, some gilded, some plain.

One stops doors. One cups cream and another, sugar.

This man knows they are tacky. Still, when the one

that had belonged to her great-aunt fell

and broke, he held her as she wept, held her

even after her breath had lengthened to sleep.

The parable does not care about such things.

Worry has come to the house of a man

and a woman. Their garden yields greens gone

bitter, corn cowering in its husk.

He asks himself, What will we eat? They sit

at the table and open the mail: a bill, a bill, a bill,

an invitation. She turns a saltshaker cat

between her palms and asks, What will we wear?

He rubs her wrist with his thumb.

He wonders how to offer

the string of pearls writhing in his belly.