Picking Sides
That summer I took the bus downtown
to work at Isaly’s, where I made ice cream cones
and sundaes and chipped ham sandwiches,
reading all of Ray Bradbury as the somber
suburbs turned gritty — stacked rowhouses
and sagging porches, women on stoops
hissing cigarette smoke.
I was all for poking the establishment,
(the smug dudes in white shirts running the show)
in the eye, and so, gave free lunch to my friend
Dennis, who was a mailman, hoping
my furtive moves went undetected by the people
perched on stools at the lunch counter.
In my white dress and mud-gold apron, I made milkshakes
on those loud, juddering machines, and rarely,
banana splits and was schooled by my uncle, the bigwig
who got me the job, to stop making my cones so large
and to weigh them on a tarnished steel scale.
But yearning for revolution, I continued to give everyone
a little extra — whipped cream, ham, chocolate sauce, coleslaw –
little fuck-yous from a good girl slowly going rogue.
Hunger
Hunger comes in on particles of rain,
on the slipstream, on the shadows made
by the sun’s traverse. Hunger bobs
and weaves, dances fancy steps, no matter
rags or broken windows, junk cars littering
the backyard, patio furniture in matching green.
Hunger comes for babies, for mournful children,
for the old and forgotten, for the chronically ill,
for the unlucky and for wanderers with minds afire.
Hunger comes into the foodbank with gratitude
and anger, in clouds of shame and with a jagged
sense of humor because what else? Hunger
has bony fingers, scratching at sores, itching
at dry skin, pressing on growls from an empty stomach.
Hunger’s been arrested, scorned, minimized
and denied. Hunger is everywhere,
a greedy criminal with no soul and no excuse.