Elizabeth and the Witness

Elizabeth and The Witness

A tentative, “Hello?”
she heard.
Elizabeth looked up slow
at first repeat of the same word.

Knitting to pattern and
eager for five minutes break,
she rose with the help of one hand,
while another massaged a back-ache.

Above her head, she could discern
that through the transom came a glow
of something interesting to learn,
about which, she just had to know,

so,

she eased the wooden door a crack
and whispered a hushed “Hello?” back.

Standing tall, hair in careful array,
a booklet-bearing man, tanned,
cleared his throat as if to say
something he’d carefully planned.
Elizabeth’s first thought became,
“Okay…What is his game?
Great goodness and past experience knows,
where this scene probably goes..”

She spoke first,
as distraction method well-rehearsed,
“That forehead mark…do you know it can be seen?”
and hoped he might be given start
that someone noticed an unclean
part.
Instead,
“Do you know Jesus?” he said.
Our Beth mumbled,
“Yeah…wasn’t he one of The Grateful Dead?”
but the youth never stumbled
and took her snide
tone in his stride.

As if she had, perhaps, not heard,
he repeated every word,
“Do
you
know
Jesus?”

She pondered what card best
now to play.
Would the fellow up and go away
if she slammed the door, or
stunted his query with a hostile YES!
full of fury?
Maybe a bit of blunt, ” ‘biblically’ or otherwise,”
would send him off in a shocked surprise.

But no,
dear Liz could not be rude.
She’d every fibre of herself imbued
of well-chosen words from Emily Post
and assumed the role of gracious host.
With feigned curiosity,
not the tired animosity
that her neighbours might have shown,
she stifled a frown,
saying,
“Oh, goodness me, young man…
what is there more -sigh-
to be known?”