Your child asks,
why do we have
an extra eye
but not an extra
nose?
The second serves
as spare, I answer,
though not quite
accurately.
We’ve a pair of
hands and feet.
Ensuring our survival
should one of them be lost
or come to fail.
As for that additional
nose, we would lose
our equilibrium,
our visage
gone askew;
we wouldn’t
survive the smell of
rotten eggs, a johnny-
on-the-spot that’s run
amok.
Your moppet
is unfazed: what about
our mouth?
I respond in a way
that will cease these
silly questions—
an extra mouth
would inflate our
dental bills, double our root
canals,
cause us to cup our ears—
at the chaos
of conversation,
voices like a match
of table tennis, bouncing
here and there, the ping
and pong of madness,
when it’s better not to
speak & only listen:
to the splash of
creek on stone,
the sparrow
in its bush
and spilling tears,
shed from both its
ducts, its mate upon the
ground with broken
wing , the other still
a-flutter, stretching in
its hell to reach the sky.
Andreas Gripp
March 1, 2025
RF Image
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