Jesus walked from village to village, filled
with the faith he’d have a place at someone’s

table. Leaving my parents’ house to carve
a new life, I doubt my invitation and hasten

food, forcing down whatever’s there:
stale bread, old bananas – the taste

of subsistence, no conversation. I return
to a new house: my offering of fingers

to ground wheat, corn on the cob,
plums, cantaloupe, even summer squash.

I pop a cork, searching through hand-me-down
cookbooks for the perfect feast, my front door ajar –

like a prescient church: someday a prodigal
son or daughter will appear with delicious breath,

starving. When we eat our leftovers,
whisper the ingredients in my ear…

 

Asian Gulls
Kim Stratford