Today there was this nugget of goodness in my inbox courtesy of POME from Mathew Ogle.
It Was the Animals
Today my brother brought over a piece of the ark
wrapped in a white plastic grocery bag.
He set the bag on my dining table, unknotted it,
peeled it away, revealing a foot-long fracture of wood.
He took a step back and gestured toward it
with his arms and open palms —
It’s the ark, he said.
You mean Noah’s ark? I asked.
What other ark is there? he answered.
Read the inscription, he told me,
it tells what’s going to happen at the end.
What end? I wanted to know.
He laughed, What do you mean, “what end”?
The end end.
Natalie Diaz (2014)
Can’t you just “see” the entire scene in your head when you read this? And, imagine a similar conversation with a sibling. Because really who cares what the inscription says about how it’s going to end, when your brother explains with great clarity “what end” he is talking about. In the way that only people who grew up together in the same home can get away with.
I am an only child. I missed out on a lot.
Posted by: Chris Oliveira | 03/22/2022 at 07:41 AM