Election Section
Two Giant Fat People By NANCE WOGAN
Based on a poem by Hafiz
I love this poem:
His idea hit home.
You God, as a big fat person on a small boat
With fat me afloat.
When we bump into each other ‘fore and ‘aft
We laugh and laugh.
Fat is the big sin of our day,
So we both are sinners?
Hey hey hey!
And the idea of no distance-no room to detach
As in “I need my space” (that au courant pop-phrased catch)
Is not the way,
At least not today.
But oh the idea of all this being
comedy,
Has me grin like grits-or a bowl of hominy!
Our fatness no shame
But in laughter we came
Into such closeness-or maybe peril.
If we laugh too hard, the boat as
herald
warns the waters all deep around,
So we laugh and laugh from way underground
That bubbles up to a surface calm,
While waters beneath us offer balm.
Fat Lordy, bump me in this
morning’s light;
Let dawn’s small boat recede the
night..
—Nance Wogan