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HARD
CHEESE
I
met God in a downtown street
and
asked offhandedly if he was there.
He
told me no.
I
tore his shirt apart, his chest,
and
thrust my hand into his blood
and
caught his heart, which beat erratic time.
He
smiled and said, ‘That’s nothing.’
‘What?’
He shrugged: ‘A trick.’
We
took a coffee in a nice café.
He
buttoned up his shirt. The tear was gone.
I
stirred in cream, asseverating,
‘For
one who is not
you
most surely
do
seem is.’
He
grinned like a cool cat
at
that and ordered toast.
I
was at peace, alarmed.
His
eyes looked past me like blind eyes
and
when I took the bill,
‘It
won’t add up,’ he said.
I
tapped a coin.
‘Now
I’m a logical man,’ I started loudly.
He
took my money, rising
among
the mouths poised and paused open:
‘You’re
full of contradictions,
so
get real.’ My coin
had
now become an egg, which he returned.
I
paid the waitress with it. He had left.
The
kind young lady didn’t blink at all.
Alan
Marshfield
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