SAINT JULIAN PRESS

Elizabeth Cohen ~ Poet

Goulash 
 
I’m preparing for the end of the world
again, which is to say I am making 
goulash, which is to say I am mixing
up everything leftover from the week
and slapping it with a fancy Hungarian
name, which is to say I am tired
 
I am planning to feed my daughter
and her three or maybe four friends
this concoction because I have convinced
myself it is better than peanut butter toast
which is to say I am cleaning out the refrigerator again
which is to say I like to see them eat 
 
I add in a few wands of asparagus, the last
of the noodles, and cheese, always cheese
because everyone knows children love cheese
and I love children eating cheese, their small mouths
opening and closing over and over so predictably
the way every day becomes a night, eventually
 
I think of the insides of them, making sense of beets
and pasta, of chicken strands, and slips of onion
the way each one of them will make sense someday
of snow-caked walkways, of books left out in rain
and heartbreak, which is to say I like the way they chew
 
Someday, they will encounter bullies
they will feed their own parents soup, 
and possibly hold someone’s hand as they die 
They will have many paper cuts 
which is to say they will bleed
but for today, they will eat my goulash
which is what I call this stir fried everything
 
I like to think I am feeding them a few ways
to prepare for the end of the world here
which is necessary these days 
which I have to say makes me tired somehow 
which is to say I know too well they will need more 
than all their beauty to get by
 

Here is a wonderful new book review from Emily Carney and Ragazine.cc on – The Patron Saint of Cauliflower by Elizabeth Cohen. 
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