Splicetoday

Writing
Dec 01, 2017, 07:00AM

Dancing in the Dark

...and we're dancing in the wonder
of why we're here.

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On a hot August night
Father Charlie and I
were sitting on the back porch.

The tip of my cigar
glowed orange in the dark,
and when he took a pull

on his scotch I could hear
the ice tinkle in the glass.
Out of nowhere he said—

How many angels,
do you imagine, can shimmy
on the head of a pin?

Sensing the game,
I countered—Or what was the herd
of swine thinking when so driven

to frenzy by cast-out devils
they jitter-bugged over the edge
of the cliff and plunged

like crazed lemmings
into the sea? He replied—
What do you suppose

caused a line of camels to
1-2-3-la-conga
through the eye of a needle?

As long as we are
on pins and needles, I said,
I always considered
the lost needle in a haystack
to be an allegory. And what,
he asked, does the needle
in that story symbolize?

God,
of course, I answered—
bright and shiny—
waiting to waltz 

Discussion

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