The old woman tilted her head like a cat who had just heard cellophane crinkle. It was almost as if she could hear something that I could not.

“I would rather not speak at all than to speak words doomed to immanent ignorance,” she croaked.

I had hardly begun my reply when, after following the woman’s gaze, realized that she was not looking at me but staring at a small opossum who, unbeknownst to me, had quietly taken his place on the table and was now sitting 15 inches to my right. It was beaming at me in a bizarrely haunting way with glassy black eyes that sent chills down my spine. For a second the whole scene seemed frighteningly familiar.

A bit startled by the weird creature, I regained my composure and turned to her quite confidently and said, “I highly doubt that the words I choose matter much in the grand scheme of things.”

“Profanity is the weapon of the witless,” she barked, once again staring at the opossum and not at me.

Growing weary of the discourtesy being paid to me by this doddering old woman and her dodgy little friend, I put my tea cup on the table and stood to take my leave. Conscious the entire time of the opossum’s imposing eyes following my every move like two black marbles rolling in infinite amplitude.

I was making my way to the door and was about to step outside into the rain in which, up until now I had been harbored, when I heard a small soft voice float to me from behind. It was the opossum, and although it was still sitting on the table I heard the words clearly as if they were whispered in my ear.

“Christ, look ye, its mere de merde, Mother of God.”

Angered and insulted, I pulled the door shut behind me and vowed that I would never again return to Foris Templum.

Poem by Jesse Turri
Illustration by Natalie Turri

Tags:dreamsNatalie TurriopossumsPoetrypossumsprofanityprose