Poem by Faith Paulsen

The Day Six Hundred Eighty Five Thousand Boxes of Plumpy’Nut -- Paid For -- Expire*

“A starving child on the brink of death can be brought back with a specialty peanut paste,
Plumpy’Nut, costing just $1 a day.” Nicholas Kristof

The hot afternoon spills its entrails
onto the macadam.

In our yard the whitetails I love despite their appetite
forage through my blue stars like teenagers at a buffet.

Above the cracked stone birdbath,
sparrows scounge.

You replace the propane tank.
I handi-wipe pollen off the porch table.

At the local high school graduation, empty folding chairs
stand in for proud immigrant parents.

A billionaire rents Venice for his wedding feast.
Workers pave over the White House Rose Garden.

A lawn mower drones. We shut the windows,
run the A/C 24/7. Like it or not,

the noise boomerangs,
follows us into the house,

where we order furniture from Wayfair,
track our heart rates, cycles, the news.

A crane pries the letters off the building
where USAID used to administer aid programs.

The flatware rattles. We wait our turn to speak.
Our humanity forks us; we are a university of dunces.

We crave carbohydrates.
The clock clocks us.

An ice cream truck jingles.
No children appear.

​Like it or not, we are tethered. The buck
turns his hindquarters to us

in full view of invisible children, who proceed to fade away--
Starving for $1 of Plumpy’Nut each.

THEME: Childhood Hunger

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Faith Paulsen writes poetry from her desk at an insurance agency near Philadelphia. Her work appears in Blue Heron, Mania Magazine, Poetica Review, Philadelphia Stories, Book of Matches, One Art, Panoply, Thimble Literary Magazine, and chapbooks Cyanomoeter (Finishing Line Press) and We Marry We Bury We Sing or We Weep (Moonstone Press). www.faithpaulsenpoet.com

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