TABLE FOR ONE

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Warm some olive oil, let it spread  

slowly across the bottom of a saucepan,

sauté chopped garlic, watch bubbles form 

around the edge of each morsel,

chop red pepper, some mushrooms,

some onions, use bite sized pieces, watch 

them soften, watch the onions turn 

golden, use vegetables so fresh 

that they offer up their essence 

to the sauce, add some chopped tomatoes, 

crush basil leaves between your palms, 

add a dash of red wine, fresh ground pepper, 

meanwhile bring salted water to a rolling boil,

add vermicelli or linguini, stir as the steam

fills the air, inhale. Then one by one

subtract the smells, the extra virgin olive oil,

the garlic infusion, onion, mushrooms,

the tomatoes ripe and juicy, 

the warm semolina, shaved parmesan, 

subtract the taste too, so the pasta

tastes like paper, the sauce, some warmish swill,

the vegetables add a bland kind of texture,

something to chew on, softer than stones,

sort of, the red wine is not worth the cost,

not really worth the trouble of decanting,

swirling. Subtract the guests at the table, 

add candles where they used to sit, 

relatives, neighbors, doctors and nurses, 

songwriters, teachers, students, bartenders,

barbers, and servers, 900,000 Americans.

Feed the birds, set the table for one,

watch clouds move across the sky,

say Mass, say Kaddish, say Grace,

try to remember how it used to taste.

 

 

Bonnie Proudfoot’s fiction and poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, Rattle Poets Respond, and in many journals. Her novel Goshen Road (Swallow Press, 2020) was selected by the WNBA for its Great Group Reads and long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award. Her first chapbook of poems, Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Press), is forthcoming in  Summer of 2022. 

LEFT BEHIND IN AFGHANISTAN

by Tricia Knoll

“Taliban Try to Polish Their Image as They Push for Victory: The insurgents are trying to rebrand themselves as effective governors as they capture new territory. But there is more evidence that they are unreformed.” —The New York Times, July 6, 2021. Photo: Members of the Taliban in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan last March. Credit: Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times.

American stuff. Artificial Christmas trees. Humvees. 

Boots that mark the Afghan soil with the treads

of Americans. Little shops sell discards

like aluminum mugs. No longer sell the body armor. 

They do sell Jif peanut butter, alarm clocks, 

backpacks festooned with swooshes, 

instant coffee, exercise stretch ropes, 

hand sanitizer and tea bags. 

 

Bagram first the pulverized Soviet airfield, 

turned burgeoning American stronghold

with Pizza Huts and Subways, field hospital

and a prison gifted to the Afghan defense ministry.  

 

Then the women left behind. What will they be asked

to wear, to think, to learn? What will divide urban

women from rural? Will medical care advance?

What happens to the voices of the poets, activists,

radio DJs, victims of domestic violence? What music

will they hear? What input to the terms of peace? 

Will electricity return as swiftly as sharia justice? 

When women hold up half the sky,

never leave behind the hope of soaring.

Tricia Knoll is a feminist poet who never takes for granted the freedoms she has enjoyed while advocating for the role of women in our world. Her poetry appears widely in journals and anthologies. 

GIVING THANKS IN THE DISUNITED STATES OF AMERICA

by George Salamon

Archive photo of Thanksgiving at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York City.

Give thanks with a beholden heart
To 12 million Americans who voted for Bernie Sanders.
Give thanks because of the future we could build with them.

Give thanks with a sympathetic heart
To two of ten Americans whose vision is not electronically enslaved.
Give thanks because they insist on seeing for themselves.

Give thanks with a delighted heart
To Susan Sarandon, celebrity with mouth and mind.
Give thanks because she spoke truth to DNC's power.

Give thanks with an empathic heart
To Mitch Hedges, cattle farmer in Paris, Kentucky.
Give thanks because on November 8 he understood that "there was nobody to vote for."

Give thanks that all Americans
Are neither wolves of Wall Street nor sheep on Main Street.
Give thanks because more of them begin to see through
Slogans touting "change" or "greatness."
Give thanks that some of those duped and disenfranchised
No longer are seduced by circuses performing for them.
Give thanks because they may discredit and dismiss
The folklore of capitalism as provider and protector
Of government for the people.

Let's eat!

George Salamon experienced his first American Thanksgiving at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Manhattan in 1948. He was asked to slice a turkey and his picture doing that appeared in the centerfold photo section of a New York tabloid, with a caption claiming that the turkey was the first one he had seen. That was correct, but the paper's reporter never asked him if he had ever seen a turkey before. Some things have not changed since then. Salamon now lives and writes in St. Louis. MO.