(reflections on writing, life, and the writing life by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner)
Appetite
(by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner)
Why do I begrudge
the older woman beside me
in the café
the noise her soup spoon
makes as it scrapes
bowl’s bottom?
Is it because she seems hurried
furtive and afraid
as if she thinks
she is taking up too much
space and
for too long?
The rattle of her ample
metal spoon
on the brittle white
finish of the bowl:
Comfort
and emptiness.
I came here to eat,
not think.
I get nervous even typing that word. Must be a southern thing, since here we learn the Bible practically by osmosis (see Matthew 5:22). Anyway, it is April, and it is Poetry Month. And if your response, in your head because you’re too polite to say it aloud, is “That just proves that April is the cruelest month,” just let me remind you, that little ditty is poetry too. Therefore, every day this month, I am foolishly going to attempt to post a poem a day. But wait! There’s more!
