waste not
my parents’ early secret marriage gouged by the Great Depression
what they’d worked years to accomplish
wiped away as promised positions
disintegrated in industrial collapse
nursing posts unavailable
to married women
everything that could be was re-used, repaired, given new life
as money simply was not
within grasp of hand
raised as i was in their hard-earned
philosophy, i eat everything on my plate
and take home scraps in a ‘doggy bag’
wasting good food was sin-like
so, much of the fried ice cream left on
the restaurant table after our celebration
was painful for me to see, but, thank
the lord, not for my family who still
believe in abundance