What do you hunger for?
The you who answers to your name,
all 30 trillion human cells of you,
is also the you made of 39 trillion
bacteria, virus, and fungi microbes
–all enough of a who to influence
how you sleep, how you feel,
and what you want to eat.
Choose a dish for all
of your yous to enjoy, maybe
a brightly glazed ceramic plate
or hand turned wooden bowl
or the thrift store find you love.
Your salad’s base might be
greens or other vegetation.
Its body might include
grains, meats, fruits, more vegetables.
Its garnish might be seeds, nuts, herbs,
maybe something pickled for tang.
Dress it to unify everything,
the way your skin cleverly holds in
all the stick and goo you call you.
You might toss this with your hands
for a brief sensory thrill in this time
when thrills are expensive.
Or you might arrange your salad’s
ingredients in different zones
of your bowl, each forkful
choreography for your mouth to enjoy.
After all, you are eating fellow life forms
who themselves once enjoyed eating
sunshine or sunshine’s yield in the nearly
endless circle of life eating life eating life
that will end, on this planet, some
four billion years from now
so go ahead, toss on extra cheese
and hum a little tune as you do,
singing to all of your multitudes.
Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, and maxes out her library card. Laura served as Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. Learn more about Laura at lauragraceweldon.com
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