Crow Hollow Books

Crow Hollow 19

Frozen Food

No Norman Rockwell cover here. No roast turkey browns in our oven.
Dinner at seven? Dream on. The microwave is your friend, my friend.

No chips or broken pieces in over thirty years. Everyday dishes
stacked in doorless cabinets. Black shavings nest at each corner.

No appetite for anything, except sleep. I crave it like gourmet
chocolates, frilled in pastel collars, nestled in foiled boxes.

No food between my teeth, just silence. No rope or rag, just dry mouth.
You ask, Is everything O.K.? You guess wrong. I shake my head, Yes.

No breath for a year takes everything.

About the poem:
The poem, “Frozen Food,” responded to a crisis that changed that way I think about life and writing. I could not write pretty poems anymore ––that reality did not exist. I became a clinical observer of the experience in order not to be overwhelmed by its emotional impact. The revisions eliminated much of the narrative, while emphasizing the telling details.

< PREVIOUS