a poem and a story

by corinne delmonico

illustrations by eddie el greco

death someday i won’t wake up and the world will still be there it won’t laugh at my jokes or ask me to say a prayer a cat will sit at a window a dog will bark on a lawn a raccoon will eat a pizza crust but i will be gone

broken hearts josie was standing in the aisle of the supermarket, looking at the six-packs of candy bars. she would have liked to steal one, but she knew the supermarket had pretty good security cameras. an old man came toward her from one end of the aisle, pushing a shopping cart with his arms folded on the handle. out of the corner of her eye, josie saw an old woman, with a red plastic shopping basket on her arm, approach from the other end. they were both old, about fifty or a hundred years old. the woman had gray hair and the man was bald and they both had wrinkled faces. they met about eight feet away from josie and josie could hear their conversation. “ray davis! is that you?” “by god - it’s marcia! marcia! how are you, marcia? i hope you are well. my god, this is amazing!” “you hope i’m well? you have the nerve to ask me that, after the way you broke my heart?” “no, marcia, i’m sorry. it was you who broke my heart.” josie could not take any more. her stomach was going to hurt from trying not to break out laughing. with a last fond glance at the six-packs of reese’s peanut butter cups, she made her way out of the market as quickly as she could without actually running. or walking so fast she might as well be running. she went to find her friend samantha. samantha was where she usually was, on the park bench over by the duck pond. and reading one of her dumb books, like she usually was. samantha was not impressed with josie’s story. “i don’t see what is so funny about it,” she told josie. “it’s not funny at all. only a goof would think it was funny.” “you are breaking my heart,” said josie, and laughed at her own joke.