Bad Man

Great things happen when good people pray.

Father:
Please make the bad man stop hurting mommy. 

Ceramic echoing as the vase, 
aimed, missing the woman’s 
avocado head, shatters: each
piece click-clacking like a bag 
of coins, her screams drowned 
by the projectile’s undoing. 

God: 
Please make the bad man stop hitting mommy. 

The man jumps, his open veiny hand, like a 
thief’s to the dangling pear, the woman’s 
ripe brown body, soft to the touch, falling;
crawling, pushing the sapling child into an
empty corridor. 

Jesus:
I am scared. Come and save us. 

Two handed, the thief lunges at
the bruised pear; in his wrist, he 
tightens her green interior from
her reddish brown skin; like the
wasteman through silt, he quickens 
overgrown fingernails into the fruit.

He pelts her seed.