An Inauguration Day Lunch Eugen Platt

An Inauguration Day Lunch

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it. - Proverbs 15:17 (RSV)

With bacon left over from breakfast, a traditional BLT seems right for a sorta light Inauguration Day lunch in the provinces far from presidential pomp.

And so I proceed, toasting twin slices of wholesome whole wheat bread to hold together, I hope, a tasty diversity of disparate parts.

I wash and slice an heirloom tomato for the T, pull from the fridge a jar of mayonnaise, and look for the lettuce, the central L, an essential ingredient of an authentic BLT.

Rummaging through crisper drawers, I find withered parsley, nuts, cheese--of course, none of these is needed like lettuce, green leaves I love.

But dammit to hell, there is no such L for the otherwise unbridgeable gap between the fading big red T and the crispy true-blue B.

Hungry but resigned to reality, I bite into the truncated BLT and turn on the tube in time to hear a collared priest beseech so earnestly a unity as elusive as lettuce.

Eugene Platt

Running in Circles

for Sarah Everard

Up close, out of nowhere I saw his lips twitch, his mouth open. He uttered a guttural glug with his throat. I twisted to turn to run, but I felt his hand grab the arm of my coat, it ripped. I lashed out, felt his grip heard his whisper not to shout. He was police. First doubt, then relief but fear won. I ran, sprinted past houses, hedges, every night darkness. I kicked off my heels, felt my feet touch the lines. I thought of how when I was young I never stepped on them for fear of grizzly bears lurking around corners. I slow down, look up, there he is with his car, holding up his badge of honour.

Kate Ennals