Christian Ward 53 Martin Breul

GLUTTON by Martin Breul

Tarmac bones branch out

bringing with them light and smoke cement tissue, steel sinews and brick fibre cable nerves transmit aluminum veins pump electricity

all nooks and crevices sprout green growing wild on old railways

carefully gardened into shape near playgrounds trains and ships and trucks suck in substance

from all over as the city breathes and chokes and breathes breaks the sweat of manure and bleeds wastewater

debris phlegm trash is secretly disposed of, hidden shamefully far from the fresh layer of suburban fat

that grows in happiness.

THE DOLLAR IS A GENERAL by Wendy BooydeGraaff

The grocery store with frilly lettuce and fancy timed sprinklers is five miles away. WIC

provides milk, fresh vegetables, select grocery items, there. Choose lower priced foods, they

say. No organic allowed, they say. No hot food, they say. All rules and measured amounts.

Spend all my time counting ounces, number of yogurts in the package. Come home with still

not enough to make my creamy mac and cheese with all the fixings.

Dollar General’s a five-minute march from my apartment. They got what you really

need, and also what you want. Canned corn, canned green beans, marshmallows, Frosted

Flakes. A packet of new kitchen towels. Don’t take WIC but five dollars goes far there.

Besides, fancy and fresh don’t last. Give it to me in a tin can or a cardboard box where I can

stack it on the shelf in my apartment, see the pictures on the labels. Where I can step back,

survey the lot and say, Why yes, Pam, why don’t we have tin can casserole tonight?