BOGOF

Shopping is not fun.
It is not one laugh after another, trawling
The supermarket shelves for a bargain,
For something you can afford.
Rooting through the reduced chiller, and
Walking up and down the fruit and veg
Looking for that tell-tale sticker.
But at least I can.
And as I walk the aisles in the co-op
I think to myself, so little stands between
Me, and needing the help of the foodbank.
I am no MP, I have no expenses account,
Just a few hundred pounds a month to
Put fuel in the car, coal on the fire, and
Food into the fridge. But the little I have
Is enough.
It is not luxury, it is not excess, it is not
Tolerant of waste and the purchase of
Fripperies. But it suffices.
And so, as I walk those aisles, and plot my
Course from onions to reduced meat, to
Kindling and frozen peas, I add to
My trolley the odd one of those,
Two of these, one of the other
And a handful of this at four for
A pound.
Because I can.
Please can you?

© 2ndwitch, 25/02/15

not nuts

spaghetti comes in strands that twirl and twist
like slippery string, and that knot themselves like
macrame that will not stay together, but that
seems to create a new image then dissolves
into a different wormy mass of wriggle.
should it be forced to be a different kind
of pasta, to become tubic macaroni that sits
quiescent on the plate, and that gobbles its own
way into the sauce, like vacuum pipes
or sections of the connections that link
oil rigs with containers?
or should it be made to spiral itself into
fusilli, and rotate around a dish, like
tadpoles that have been lulled into a
state of pre-frog torpor?
surely it does not matter what shape the pasta
is, for it is pasta, and as pasta it is part of the
great universe of foods that can be cooked
and eaten?

© 2ndwitch, 21/10/14