Rebecca Loudon
COMFORT FOOD
When I heard you died,
I thought of cabbages
tight little heads in a row
bunched and green
and the salad we ate last April
when Julia plucked out
the blood ripe strawberries,
spun them on her tongue.
I cooked asparagus,
walnuts,
silken, palm-heavy pears
speckled, dripping
toward your slow lung,
your tired knobby spine.
Later I brought casseroles;
white sauce and baby peas
soaked in butter,
soup that snapped with tiny carrot fingers,
plump turnip hearts.
When you stopped eating
I still brought food,
placed chocolate animals in a pentagram
on your window sill
to keep the dark, sweet dream
at bay.
Copyright 2000, Rebecca Loudon
Rebecca Loudon is a violinist for Philharmonia Northwest. She has recently
had work published in Between The Lines, American Jones Building
& Maintenance and Switched-on Gutenberg.
Switched-on Gutenberg/Vol. 4, No. 2
|