Days Like These
- Days Like These
It’s days like these: the fridge turned into a tomb for the remains
of fauna, flora, omega 3s, —the whole bit—and the phone
cries like a washerwoman (raining interruption, damp and heavy).
These days I ache for poetry: a single hush slip sliding slowly across time
to censor the lies sewn into my verse, to wade me gently into rhyme.
And it’s nights like these: the landlord’s complaints about the scent of my filter, [End Page 94]
the phone struck dumb. A sister’s angry message scrawled on its tongue. Madness
dictates my every move, washes me in tears of pity and regret. In the days and nights
like these to follow (in the next stage of the last strain)
poets will be sacrificed; their hunger made quiet on days like these—
the moon’s full face an omen. The sun startled into darkness. [End Page 95]
Mary Catherine Loving “As a youngster, I was taught not to eat certain foods or certain food combinations. My family did not eat an animal’s internal organs, nor did we consume milk and meat together, and the term meat was extended to include fish. My father would no more serve us fish sticks and milk for lunch than he would pork or catfish at dinner. The former was simply not done, and as for pork and catfish—both were scavengers: unclean, and in my family, not intended for consumption. In adulthood, I learned that others shared many of my somewhat unusual eating habits.”
