The Gift.
She challenged him.
“Write a poem about me”
she said.
He voice was a demand
and insistent,
like the shrill cry of the seagulls
gliding over the lake,
looking for a meal.
She kept at him,
and wanted to direct his words
in a commander’s bark
that would not take no for an answer.
“Tell the world that I am beautiful”,
she said.
“I want the world to sing songs about my beauty,
after I am gone”.
He sat at the typewriter,
so that she would think
he was writing,
and thought about what to say.
She was beautiful,
in her way.
Her physical beauty
was a gift from the gods.
She knew that she was beautiful,
and permitted no dissent.
She did little else
but preen
and apply her makeup
in strange places.
What could he write
about her beauty?
Suddenly, the words flowed
from his fingertips.
“Her beauty is a sight to behold”,
he wrote.
“It is only exceeded by the ugliness
of her soul”.
He gave the tiny poem to her,
and she was silent
for the first time.
“Truth is beautiful,
even when it ends relationships”,
he said,
as he opened the door
and went out to write poems
for someone who didn’t need
to hear about how beautiful she was.
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