Yesterday, I drove to the Mall of Morals,
Not that I’m a sinner.
It’s the best grocery store in town, and
I had friends coming home for dinner.

I had promised I’d cook their favorite —
The Spicy Moral Curry;
A recipe by a resourceful Chef
That’s known to kill the germs of worry.

So, I loaded my cart with a kilo of Values,
And picked up two of Honesty;
Then picked up a carton of Honour,
And loaded two sacks of Empathy.

I also purchased a container of Kindness,
And some loose sachets of Sacrifice.
I  bought three sprinklers of Respect and thought 
A bottle of Tolerance should suffice.

Then, I reached home and got to work;
I chopped, diced, sautéed, and stirred.
An hour on the boil, I lifted the lid, and – voilà!
The fumes of flavor flew out like birds.

Finally, the evening arrived with my friends;
We drank, chatted, and the dinner got late.
At a little past 12, the Dish came calling,
By then, the hungry could barely wait.

Like butchers at a banquet,
They at once dug into the dish;
Nudging sobriety with their forks,
They ate with loud slurps of relish.

“Wow!” Fantastic!” “Perfect!”
Were words that I heard;
While each one tried to label the flavor,
More and more I served.

But, soon after, the dinner became a disaster;
An evening that I could omit.
After polishing the Spicy Moral Curry,
There wasn’t one who did not vomit.

There was he, who fell off the chair vomiting Values,
While his wife stood up choking on Honour,
The couple opposite was puking out Respect,
While I was fraught with horror.

One’s girlfriend became sick with Sacrifice,
And one’s husband was throwing up Tolerance;
Those allergic to Empathy had an epileptic fit, while
I was screaming into the phone for an ambulance.

Thankfully, by the morning, the night had passed,
And we all woke up at the hospital.
The doctor told us it was food poisoning;
We fretted when he said it could have been fatal.

My friends looked at me questioningly, but
How could I defend the Dish I had made?
Until I reached home and checked
The grocery for its packaging date.

That’s when the mystery unraveled,
And embarrassment left me pale.
For years, I had been a loyal customer,
But now, loyalty had me failed.

Utterly enraged, I drove back to the Mall of Morals, and
Told the management they should prepare to go to jail.
For, I was going to file a lawsuit, 
And sue them for selling me Morals that were stale.

Poem by Vikram Bhatti