by Joan Halperin
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As she usually does when we dine,
when we laugh and carry on,
Margaret says “and we sit here in our bubble
while Haitians scurry around the rubble
attempting to extricate their dead.”
None of us wants Margaret at our table.
We pause. What can we do to help?
Donate clothing, food, perhaps even toys.
Margaret says “Nothing like that will stop their strife,
will stop a boy from devouring garbage.
A toy teddy bear never saved a life."
None of us wants Margaret at our table.
None of us want to devour our ice cream scoops.
but deep in us a desire to save our neighbors,
deep in us a knowledge that we own too much.
None of us wants Margaret at our table
but she finds the timber, lights the fire
flickering, that small spark,
almost available to touch.
Joan Halperin has been published in Passengers, Confrontation, Persimmon Tree, and others. She lives and continues to write at Orchard Cove, a continuing care residence in Canton Mass.