Divine Honors

Riddle

Riddle I'm the one who pumps all day ail night to letyou live. All I petin return is broken. This one from Scott, grade nine, on the day the kidssay they like me, write hard as I roam their aisles in Crete the spring after the year I had cancer, two years after my body emptied. This from life, the body blow the medicine ball lets swing from the rafters in the gym and you in the way,the thump and thud as your blood rushes to cover up, the kids in attendance as the bruise begins to color. Outside hail pummeling the car, my minotaur thudding against ribs bruised but holding, the flesh cage, against his rampages. And I drive like hell in the din. Today I am eating again. Donuts in the lounge soothe my throat, enter my empty belly. Coffee. A plaque in italic on oak a creed about acceptance. I'm trying. In my ninth grade year, the elastic band in my underpants stretched out—all seven pair, 56 each day of the week an accident. I wasthin. Who could love me again in a world so dangerous I was food? Now, each breath a gift, the soar in air of hawks on the highway searching for road kill: some sure sign I'm present. This world is dangerous. I hurt in the teachers' lounge whereTV dribbles and the choral teacher warbles his vibrato in answer to the second grade aide, a soprano. Their voices braid in time to cover my hiccup. 57 This page intentionally left blank ...