Curses and Candy

Curses and Candy
By Jocelyn Dorsey

The old man muttered, “Curse you. Curse me.
Curse the blood in my veins.
Curse the body steeped in pain.
Curse the soul with nothing to gain.”
He grumbled and grumped
from his old rocking chair,
killing grins with his heartless stare.
“Curse this world that’s so unfair.”

Down the sidewalk, came a little girl—
She cheerfully bopped down the street—
In her hands, she clutched a yellow box
that clinked with candy, sugary sweet.

She stopped at the house,
where the bitter man sat.
She stopped at his house.
The man couldn’t believe that.

He tried to use his glare to scare her,
but she melted it with a smile.
He tried to tell her to go away;
She said she would after a while.

She plopped down beside him,
and handed him her boxed snack.
Happily said, “Don’t eat the whole pack.”
And sighed, “I wish my teacher would come back.”
In breathless crowded words,
she rattled about her school day.
Meanwhile, the old man smiled in his own way,
glad she had ignored him and decided to stay.

And when she had finally gone,
for she’d run out of things to say,
the old man looked across his lawn—
Maybe the world wasn’t cursed every day.