Belief
We must believe that Lucy wants to hold the football for Charlie.
To think otherwise suggests cruelty, and Lucy is not cruel.
She offers psychiatric help for five cents.
Charlie knows there will be no football.
He’ll land flat on his back.
Maybe kill himself.
Yet he believes. Eyes wide open, he accepts Lucy’s offer.
To do otherwise rejects the football (and Lucy).
If that, then what’s left?
Lucy also believes. First that she will hold
Against Charlie’s thunderous charge. And then,
That her fingers will be bruised beyond healing.
At the worst possible moment, she yanks
Away the football.
Charlie tumbles up to the sky.
She could have said, “I’m sorry.”
Or “I was afraid.”
Charlie would have understood.
She pretends otherwise for shame of her fears.
But Charlie knows. Why go on living,
Without believing in impossible things?
*
Frank Gaughan is a writer and educator based in New York. His short fiction appears in Arcturus and the Good Life Review. His academic writing on composition pedagogy has appeared in College Composition and Communication and Inside Higher Ed. He teaches composition at Hofstra University and is developing a collection of poetry and short fiction.
