David Bingham

The Power of Speech

“Once there was a little girl who all of a sudden stopped speaking. She wouldn’t talk to her mummy or her daddy or her baby sister. She became lonely because she couldn’t join in the games the other children were playing and she sat by herself at her desk in the classroom. Things went on like this until one day, in a room full of toys, a kind woman asked her the right question and the little girl told her she’d been bitten by a snake in the night."

“Miss, and is the little girl alright now?”

“Oh yes, she’s alright now; she’s all grown up and has a little girl of her own.”

“Miss?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ve been bitten by a snake too.”

at the wood’s edge
the stillness of a reptile
soaking up the sun