COMMON UNDERSTANDING

It didn’t surprise him that he
quickly understood the cat
they adopted during the pandemic
for all he had to do was apply
basic feline logic, that everything
in her new home was either
hers or theirs collectively,
it was just that simple.
He had come from a place,
a life, where there had been
hers and theirs, simple.
When that life ended, as everyone
but him seemed to know it would,
he came away with that portion
of theirs for which his ex cared least
or of which she had grown tired.
So he and the cat had a comfortable
understanding until more and more
of theirs became hers alone.

OH MY GOD

On the subway there was a placard
telling me and all of the other riders
where we could find God, promising
salvation if we made the search.

Someone had scrawled beneath it
“God is ded.” I was left to wonder
if the writer also thought that God
was now somehow deceased,

and how you would know
if that were really the case, since
you’d be struck deaf, dumb
and blind if you were in His presence,

unless, of course, you were
an evangelical preacher, in which
case you talked to the man upstairs
with great regularity, making

certain you never, ever disclosed
how much you were taking in
in collections each Sunday, lest
God claim his portion of the take.