Meat, Potatoes Poetry

I have been reading, and enjoying, the weekly Food section for many years. Though I have read countless letters about food, I can’t recall seeing any poems on the subject in your pages. Perhaps my modest effort may inspire other readers to rectify the oversight.

American Cookery

being what it is these days

(recipe-ing from Bangkok to the Andes

new ways to tease our jaded palates)

leave us not forget

meatloaf.

Dense as a brick

baked to a turn

thick sliced and served with

mashed potatoes

and a gravy as viscous and brown as

Mississippi mud

(and don’t forget the canned peas

please)

Blueplate fueling this

for the body and soul of journeyers

along the compass rose

of the American blacktop.

*

--PHILLIP ROCK

Newbury Park