We type in our orders on the computer, and in less than two hours a shopper comes to leave groceries on the doorstep. What a privilege it is to still be able to have bread and eggs, bananas, salad greens, some kind of meat— without needing to leave the safety of our homes. We remember in the '90s how military forces joined a coalition at the start of the Gulf War and panic rippled into our small city in the hills. This is it, neighbors said: WWIII. Store shelves emptied as people panicked: canned goods, paper products, oil and sugar and salt. What a miracle to find even a small bag of rice, a tin of sardines. Sudden wealth in a handful of yellow potatoes; a longer stretch of days. Even so, we know somewhere else not even a grain remains, not even a soup bone in the larder. An endlessness has gone by. Some of us give thanks we haven't whittled completely down to bone. Some of us count our stores. Some put away the bowls that others used to eat from when they were still here among us, holding out for days that stretched into more than a year.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.