Yesterday’s News

a poem

I love to look at thick glass jars

in grocery aisles filled with capers

or antique show tables covered with dust,

reminders of Great Depression kitchens I’ll never know

nor the American heroes

who stirred the stew and read the paper in ordinary gray evenings

while kids draped their wet mittens and wool socks over the sometimes working radiator

saying things like “geez ma” and “sledding was swell.”

After supper the thin stew is ladled

into a thick jar or two without comment,

the paper is folded

and the radio is clicked on to listen to the latest western

romanticize the past.