‘Her gentle look turned the spider, crawling up the side of the tub into a miracle, in a tuneful minor key.' Photo: by engin akyurt on Unsplash
IMHO
Poem by Dana Littlepage Smith
Jesus did not appear to me today
in a burnt a piece of toast.
Nor in the face of the cornbread,
nor in the sad black eye of the sunflower.
Maybe he was lingering in the musical shadows
of children singing in my morning dreams.
Or perhaps he was hiding in the bricked-in door,
so perfectly sealed these generations
where Love was missed yet waiting.
His loss might have been suggested
in the spider that went down the drain.
Bathing, I imagined it hanging on in clotted hair…
Hope in things not seen,
meant I did not unplug the drain
when I was finished.
Instead I went downstairs
into our garden for the watering can.
I trudged back up to scoop the water from the bath,
spilled it from the second story window
onto the parched ground below.
A cat was surprised and a woman down the road
stopped what she was doing to look up at me and smile.
Her gentle look turned the spider,
crawling up the side of the tub into a
miracle, in a tuneful minor key.
*IMHO is an abbreviation of ‘In my humble opinion’ often used on social media or in text messaging.
