Guidelines for Eating
Do you like peas?
Do you like rice?
asks the little girl in her highchair.
Maybe it’s when we are her age
that we first learn the truth about food.
It’s when we make our choices to be
eaters or starvers in times of crisis.
“Maybe you didn’t grow up that way,”
he says, but “I’m European….”
Do you like cheese?
“I made that soup for you!
I know you love meatball soup—
would you cry if I told you to go
in the kitchen and fix yourself a bowl?”
Do you like ham?
We had ham for Easter.
“Why are you crying? It’s not like
an airplane has crashed. It’s not like
your mother has been hit by a bus.”
Do you like peas?
Do you like rice?
“You shouldn’t eat that bread and butter.
Butter is all fat. It will kill you!
Go ahead—here, take this!”
Two pounds of butter tumble
across the counter.
Do you like cheese?
There are times when a woman
wants salt or chocolate,
at least comfort in the form
of bread or peas.
And there are times when this man
eats an entire can of condensed milk.
“It’s a treat,” he says, “Where I grew up
this stuff was over two dollars a can.”
Do you like ham?
We had ham for Easter.
I know the planning, the time
and preparation that go
into making ham for Easter
or into a bowl of homemade soup.
I know how hard it is
to taste a gift when it comes
with words so often repeated,
words that pass through the filter
between brain and mouth
as easy as water through a colander.
Do you like peas?
Do you like rice?
Walking in Circles
If blindfolded and told to walk
a straight line in the desert,
we cannot do it.
In a forest, where the canopy
of leaves blocks the sun,
we will find an invisible wind
blowing us off course.
It is ingrained in us
to walk in circles.
Perhaps this is why I wake
each morning, surprised
that there is no head
on the pillow beside mine.
There is a need to check my phone
for a message from you,
as if I simply slept so soundly
that I did not hear you
returning in the night.
But I woke seven times–
the cat was running a circle
from the windows on the east
to the windows on the west.
She is curled up now,
a nap-circle beside my knee.
It doesn’t seem to bother her,
to accept that circular nature
of nose to tail.
But I feel myself, orbiting moments,
reaching backwards
for when you were here.
Everyone’s advice would be–
Move on.
As if I could control (or would want to)
the emotion circling
through arteries and veins.
It is only natural
to remain unable (unwilling?)
to follow a linear path.
Pica
I remember exactly what my crib tastes like—
a sort of plastic-wood, the way I imagine
a fresh snapped birch twig to taste.
These days, as an adult, I try to be choosier
about what I put in my mouth.
As children, we explore and discover,
almost forget how to stay alive.
We leave the safety of children to adults,
who install crib sides upside-down
and inadvertently allow our heads to get trapped.
Maybe it’s because I understand that imperfection
that I crave the creamy texture
of plastic Risk troops on my tongue.
I have the inter-generational habit of idly chewing
the ends of hair, while pondering
some kindergarten question—
Some of us always return to taste
as the basic means of understanding.
Even the cat is drawn to circles of elastic,
lying in wait on the kitchen table
or on top of the clothes hamper.
And somewhere, someone in this neighborhood
is trying to overcome the need to gnaw and chew—
I found a metal spatula with bite marks on its handle.
It is lying, lonely, on the sidewalk under a pay phone.
It makes me wonder if its surrender was forced or voluntary.
I can picture this cooking tool flung out an open window
by a cook weary of seeking from utensils
what can’t be found in food.
Maryann Wolfe teaches creative writing, composition, and food writing at Bridgewater College. She has had work published in The Bluestone Review and Earth’s Daughters and placed in contests run the VA Poetry Society.
