Question mark meanders

like a curl of smoke ascending heavenward,

a supple supplicant, innocent yet insistent,

only to cool, drift sideways,

bend back under itself–

expectant and intrusive

its round, ripe belly

belies the truth

of what it holds–

then descending,

   a dagger

ready

to

dig

in

deep

*

It was a simple question.

Is this your son’s coat?

But I answered an unasked question–

twisted, stained, bloody and ripped raw–

unmasking my horror and grief.

*

Years later, they stated it simply,

Joseph is still alive.

Standing among his gifts of wagons

and donkeys and food and riches

I added two words–My son–

forming a question that punctuated their tacit deceit–

a jagged gash

puncturing the tender trust between us.

 

by Alan Toltzis

Alan Toltzis is a strategic marketing consultant living in the Philadelphia area. One of his poems was published in Focus Midwest. He is writing a long series of poems that uses the Torah as a starting place.

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