Voting heats up in Cairo
The Jerusalem Post, 24 May 2012
Haven’t lived there for years,
been all this time in Midian where
took me a wife, laid low
from the long reach of Pharaoh.
Now word has come
from none other than the Big I Am,
an election’s underway
and the Israelites will all pray
the self same thing; they aren’t fussed
whether there’s just one box
to put their cross beside,
or as many as the names He goes by.
Lord knows they’re owed a break,
a deal’s a deal, so to speak,
so He scares away my in-law’s goats
by torching a clump of mountain gorse,
and turns my staff into a sand viper,
and poxes my eating hand,
then He empties out his sack
on the cracked and thirsty sand.
I’m standing waist deep in polling chits
rendered to the Lord by Israelites,
each one signed with a cross
but no candidate’s name in any box.
(c) 2012 Slush Poet
