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Sharon Cumberland

"My poems are both funny and spiritual--how's that for a combination?"

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THE DAY NO ONE DIED

By Sharon Cumberland

There are seven billion people in the world.

Every second—every millisecond—thousands die

like drops of water rushing together

over a vast falls.

But on this particular day,

the old ladies gasping on mats in the corner of huts

or in hospices and hospitals, and the old men gazing at the ceiling

from their death beds, lived to see the sun rise once again.

Pedestrians walked safely down the sidewalks of the world,

and drunk drivers plowed into snow banks or hedges

instead of people or trees. Skiers also avoided trees,

and no boys hoping for paradise wrapped themselves in dynamite

to haunt the market places of Afghanistan or Syria

or Iraq. Mothers all over the world selected apples and coconuts,

mangos and pomegranates to take home on what seemed like a normal day.

But on this particular day, the epidemiologists

had a few more hours to unravel the secrets of Ebola, HIV/AIDS,

malaria. The little boy, alone in a sterile room in Liberia

could look through the plastic window at his mother for one more day.

No one noticed this miracle—the ICU nurse simply noticed

that all of her patients seemed to rally a little, and the hospice

volunteer went from bed to bed smiling into the quiet faces

of those who waited, some with hope, others—on this particular day—

with less resentment than usual.

City morgues caught up on their backlogs

because, as sometimes happens, there were no

murders on this particular day, and no kids falling out of windows

or into ponds or out of cribs, no Dads slipping on ice

or falling off ladders stringing lightsor clearing gutters. Firemen

ate lasagna and were grateful for an uneventful day.

Far away, in those places we send soldiers

but never go to ourselves, everyone seemed

to just sit down and smoke a cigarette, or a pipe,

or a hookah, and have a cup of coffee.

They all seemed to be waiting—waiting

for something all of them wanted.

On this particular day, everyone lived.

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Poems

LIPSTICK

I DREAMED OF MY MOTHER’S CLOTHES

MAN WHO WANTS YOU

MARRIAGE AT CANA

UNREASONABLE WOMAN

TWENTY YOUNG MEN

THE DAY NO ONE DIED

KYRIE PANTOKRATOR

MY HOUSEMATE BOWS A THOUSAND TIMES

BEFORE

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