Dear Plastic Bagged Bread,
From the center section of a grocery store aisle,
you leer at customers with your plastic smile.
If I stop too long to speculate, I wonder about why they place you
in a coveted eye level space of command- strong sales you must prove.
If I accidentally edged your long bag into my closing palm,
I could crush the squishy mass, but that would be wrong-
because what we need in America is fast access sugar.
We can’t get enough of cheaply made foodstuff.
How long will we abide the villainy denouncing whole
grains due to your packaging claims on a bag of white rolls.
But, I know how you would rebut: Americans don’t care
from where the food comes or how it gets made
as long as the pantries fill up from 10 for 1 deals –
you’re from San Francisco, you don’t partake of these meals!
I’m so sick of your bag doing all the talking
what happened to taste, smell, texture – it’s got me balking.
I’ve been learning your game to slip a curveball past you:
a rising minority is proof the ranks are changing and are through
with second rate sandwiches, toast that underperforms,
blaming grains – gluten-full or free for the sad state of norm
that is what we call bread. Just ask a starter, you of the plastic two-
face, as it bubbles up fervently to respond. What it says, we might rue
because to make fermented bread requires more than just money,
but regular feedings, time, love and care, honey.
So, maybe that is too much to ask for, but you, I will still eschew.
And, for now, I’ll go back to baking my own loaves of bread. That’s what I do.
© Annelies Zijderveld. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or post without attribution.
Annelies, these are wonderful! What a great idea, and such an interesting take on persona poems. Do put me on your mailing list for your published work, okay? xCelia