Facing the stove, I busy my hands

with this thrice-cooked fowl, weaving water
herbs and onions to conjure a warming

repast for our souls.
Skin holds meat, meat holds
bone (or is it the other way around?) and
as chunks slip and slide into the bubbling
pot before me, I wonder, wordless,
at the speed with which we revere
and revile our fellow human beings.

In the other room a happy tumult erupts.
A television voice announces it’s a beautiful
day in LaLaLand. Steady sun shines
on folks arriving via car and carpet as
crowds cheer.
Some of them will be handed the world.
Perhaps they deserve it.
The cynical may scoff at these bright gifts
offered to those who chase and make
‘silly dreams.’
Why all the to-do over such a shallow
show, this vanity diminished by the weight
of headlines, today’s news, my own life?

Perhaps it is precisely dreams we need.