They will always be scammers, I tell the bishop by Sharon Waller Knutson

But he disagrees with me: Sinners
can change. We baptized them
and gave him a job in the thrift
store and her counseling for conning
you and all the charities in the county.

I almost believe him when I see
the husband driving off in the Chevy
at dawn without flipping cigarette
butts on the lawn and his wife walking
to town without stopping to complain.

She writes out the rent check, smiling
sweetly in a skirt skimming her calves
and blouse buttoned up to her neck.
But I am skeptical when the bishop
reports strange happenings.

First a Lazy Boy couch and chair
are reported missing from the thrift store
where he worked. Then he turns up dead.
He says she has applied for widow’s
benefits and I agree to go with him

to get the death certificate. Meeting
us at the door, she wipes her eyes
with a Kleenex and explains: the document
was delayed and invites us to sit on the Lazy Boy
couch next to her brother, a dead

ringer for her late husband. She plops
in the matching Lazy Boy chair
as the bishop and I exchange smirks.
Can’t we skip the paperwork.
I need the money to pay the rent.



Sharon Waller Knutson lives in the Arizona desert where she writes narrative poetry. Her work has appeared in various journals including Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Five-Two, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, The Song Is… and U.S. Worksheets. “They will always be scammers, I tell the bishop” is a sequel to a poem that was posted by Red Eft Review on October 5, 2020. Click here to read it.