They say it's gonna be a big one, I gasp
at Neil on the long trudge up the hill to my place,
sherpa, burdened with toilet roll and cereal.
Neil sits on his porch with a Yuengling, the bottle
the only thing green as far as the eye can see.
Yep. Neil answers back, almost all there is to say.
Stocked up. Liquid bread, he laughs,
raising it in salute. It is not until then
that I wonder if all the things I have done to prepare
were the wrong things,
all the sustenance I hoarded the wrong sustenance.
I wonder if, on the second or third day,
hair matting, the cold suppressing my scent,
I will feel up to wandering out to scavenge,
wonder what I will bring myself to do to acquire
what other people smartly thought to procure,
Wielding a shovel, chipping a path through the ice.
And will it be worth it, that taste of tart wheat,
sharp and sweet on the tongue?
-Jessica Manack
(originally published in Wild Roof Journal)
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