Poem by Claudia Gary

​Comfort Food 
 
Lentils and barley,
water and salt,
split peas and pasta--
pure to a fault--
 
stir until clouded,
season to taste,
boil and then simmer,
nothing to waste.
 
Greens can be added.
Time's on a loop.
Towers have toppled
into the soup.
 
Cauldron of comfort
served with warm hands,
this is a recipe
crisis demands.

​Author of Humor Me ( 2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), Claudia Gary (Loudoun County, VA) is also a health and science journalist. She teaches at The Writer’s Center (writer.org), FAES (FAES.org), and elsewhere. See pw.org/content/claudia_gary, @claudiagary.

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