Inappropriate Laughter
Our eighteen-year old daughter
Is lying comatose in the ICU
After a nearly fatal car crash.
My husband and I are driving to
A friend's house to leave ourve our
Thirteen-year old twins in her care
While I spend the day in the hospital
The road to the friend's house
Is at the top of a steep hill.
The road turns now this way, now that.
My husband keeps some cigars
on top of the dashboard.
As we clumb the hill,
Centrifugal force
Send the cigars sliding from side to side.
When the cigars slide my way,
My husband says, "Have a cigar."
The cigars then slide back to his side
And I say "No, thanks, I just had one.
They slide towards me again and he says,
"Well, have another."
We dissolve into helpless laughter,
Realizing how insane we sound,
Driven there by the possibility
That our child could die.
To think about that,
Is more than we can bear.
So we wrap ourselves in laughter
As a balm against a possibility
We dare not contemplate.
Copyright © Harriet Perlis | Year Posted 2010
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