August 3
SHARING
Please take a bite of my PB&J. I made it myself. It is fine as it is. I slathered the bread and cut it so neatly; still I can’t help but want to offer some to you. I know that to stand and smile next to you, watch you lick the peanut butter from the roof of your mouth, have you dab the jelly from the corner of my lips, will make this sandwich even better. You bring so much to this meal, something bright and so clever. You bring you. I can pull things together and set it all up but somehow my creation is never quite complete until I share it with you.
Withhold a convoy of criticism, advance a brigade of cheer.
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Big Name
My name has a foreign sound;
my head turns when it is called.
I recognize this as training not identity.
I remember teaching the dog her name.
I called it while petting and praising her,
soon the name was hers.
Now, I think of God.
Did we call long and loud enough
to trigger name recognition on a vast intangible?
Is this how we tagged and labeled the unknowable;
assigned it a place on a shelf;
somewhere to be called up from?
Does the noise sound as strange as the syllables
of my name sound to me?
Does it matter as long as we answer?
You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault
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