Provision

Every family has its hardship
foods, its illness foods—in ours,
I remember my mother's 
cracker soup: a pack of pulverized
Sky Flakes, water, milk, salt, and 
pepper made richer by the heat
of the stove. An extravagance: 
onions, celery, a chicken wing. 
The uncles were always talking 
about the war that still felt
as close as yesterday; what they 
found in the ditches and ate—
snails, frogs, mushrooms foraged
in the woods. Fronds, rinds of fruit, 
blackened peel; even the humid 
rain that salted dusty towns. Look
at the wide and generous platter
made by the dark, night after night.