Cooking for the Week

I got carried away this afternoon, cooking some of my favorite vegetarian dishes like sweet potato apple curry soup, tofu scrambler, cashew cheese, and hummus. Bread is baking in the bread maker, while I finish the last slice of last week's loaf. Yes, winter is here, and I'm nesting.

Here are a couple of poems to show my moods.

I’ve lost my joy

It must be back there

somewhere

on Route 24

sliding

into a snow bank.

A state trooper

inches by

promising to

call for  help;

even he won’t stop

offer it a ride

and bring it

home.

Walking with Dolly and Him

He’s on the stoop, phoning me for a walk. It’s Sunday, and I pull wind pants over tights and a sweater too long, tucked into panties. Sweating, I harness Dolly

and shoot down the street, startling squirrels and grackles and the kids who are all chalk. We meet across from the water tower and enter a cul-de-sac, its slow track

of sand cracking in the slanted cold. We kick rocks into gaps, grinning like fences as we march. Because it’s Sunday, early enough to smell frost, and we’re friends to all that’s chucked in the trash heap, our talk is rubbish: Indonesia and orangutans lost to palm oil, pension plans and the narrowing hips of a sick woman’s frame turning away. An empty waste bag tumbles across a hotel parking lot, showing us

another way to go.