Day 22: Bread and Funerals

You need carbs to grieve.

Old women sense this.

That’s why old ladies give hearty pastas

and loaves of thick, chewy bread at funerals.

Alcohol for the wake, sure,

But bread for that cold night.

Rolls and loaves, old recipes and new,

Bread and pasta

To absorb what’s inside

To fill the newly hollowed spaces

We know this – we know the old ways of sadness.

 

I wonder if the gluten-free,

The wheat-haters, the bread-averse,

Squirrel away rolls sub-conciously

When faced with a death.

I cannot imagine eating a fruit bowl

At a funeral and feeling any better.

Drinking green smoothies, eating low-carb crackers-

How does the new age soul revive

In the face of such smooth food?

 

No one gave me carrots when my mother died.

They gave me lasagna

They gave me casseroles

They gave me bread.

Bread and zinis – enough to fill half the freezer.

And I ate and cried

Until I was full and empty