The congregation nod as the pastor “preaches”<\/p>\n
he decrees death upon women following other people’s husbands<\/p>\n
“Ride on Sir” Ejiro echoes<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now she turns to me<\/p>\n
gifts me an ear-to-ear grin<\/p>\n
then points with her gaze<\/p>\n
“that woman is sleeping with the husband of the woman sitting next to her”.<\/p>\n
“How do you know this?” I ask.<\/p>\n
“Everyone does. They’re best friends but she goes on trips with her friend’s husband<\/p>\n
The decree was for her”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the women are dressed alike–<\/p>\n
like butterflies<\/p>\n
I want to ask if the innocent woman knows this<\/p>\n
they are whispering and buzzing like bees when I steal a glance<\/p>\n
I conclude she doesn’t.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The pastor decrees the wrath of God on promiscuous members of the church<\/p>\n
he ends his preaching and praises ring to God<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We dance out to give our offerings<\/p>\n
as the drum thuds to the keys the choir hit in their praise<\/p>\n
I begin to feel the service was worth my time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An announcer mounts the podium to announce Thanksgiving<\/p>\n
The butterflies flutter to the back of the church.<\/p>\n
the cheating husband trudges to join them<\/p>\n
a little girl and a boy walk in front of the couple–<\/p>\n
beautiful fruits of the union<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the pastor blesses the man<\/p>\n
cries how much he contributes to the work of the Lord<\/p>\n
“church, this man has been a good member of the church, one worth emulating”<\/p>\n
I laugh at the hypocrisy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I kiss Ejiro goodbye<\/p>\n
promise to bring her my famous Oha soup to work the next day.<\/p>\n
Making oha soup is very therapeutic to me even if I don’t eat it<\/p>\n
That is better hypocrisy to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The congregation nod as the pastor “preaches” he decrees death upon women following other people’s husbands “Ride on Sir” Ejiro echoes Now she turns to me gifts me an ear-to-ear grin then points with her gaze “that woman is sleeping with the husband of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1136,441,5],"tags":[5292,5314,2506,3014],"class_list":["post-116090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","tag-2022hour12","tag-2022prompt12","tag-hour12","tag-prompt12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116090"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123593,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090\/revisions\/123593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}