For today’s challenge, write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.

My mother lies dying, I find

bits of her scattered 

about the house. 

 

The first to go were dentures

which she spat out 

with glee, “a grouch,”

 

she called me when I called

her out on it, she waggles

her lone front tooth

 

and cackles at us. 

Other times she asks 

Who I am. “Bhoot”* I said, 

 

managing to coax a smile…

She does not say much,

her mouth is used 

 

to squirt out the soup

my sister painstakingly

feeds, my sister and I 

 

sit talking in hushed tones, 

picking at the chilly pork

the absurdity of it all

 

making us glance at each other

and burst into laughter

unbidden, unexplained.

 

In the end, in the end 

when all is done and said, 

would you have us cry instead?

 

 

 

*Bhoot: Ghost!