Appetite

 

In this tongue-in-cheek, yet macabre poem, I complain about how COVID-19 seems to target those who, like myself, have a weakness for overeating. 

This is me, stamping my feet, in protest. 

It seems particularly harsh, that we should, in our own best interest, cut back on eating, now.  At a time when there is precious little else to do, as we practice isolation and distancing for the second year straight!

Until now, the price to pay for such delicious indulgence was relatively low, for many.

COVID-19 has changed all that. A practice once considered to be pretty harmless, a victimless crime, if a crime at all, now carries dire consequences.   COVID has turned our world upside down, turning America’s favorite past time–eating–into one with a waiver attached:  Eat at Your Own Risk!

I find all this most inconvenient.  Thankfully vaccinations have lowered the risk, for those who have gotten them.  But still, age and obesity are risk factors that it would be foolish to ignore, and attributes that are hard to shake, once you’ve acquired them.  The habit of  overeating is difficult to break.  Also, age is considered by many to be irreversible.

No disrespect intended, to those who have already succumbed to COVID-19 or felt its bite.  We live in strange times, for sure.

Anyway, enjoy this tasty morsel.  And thanks, for coming by to read!  

 

 

Sandwiches at eleven.

Sandwiches for tea.

Another sandwich–good for you,

And good for you and me.

 

Ripe strawberries and melons,

Brown-sugared sour cream,

The slightest hint of lemon,

A mint leaf–jagged green.

 

Grotesquerie of edibles.

As meals compound in size,

Our waistlines take the shape of aprons,

Flagging our demise.

 

Who knew our appetites alone

Would be our true undoing?

Who knew what sinful cocktail

Wicked cold-germs were a-brewing?

 

I wish they’d given notice,

Told us, of this poundage tax.

Instead we learn that we are targets,

After the attack.

 

Though gluttony’s a deadly sin,

We had assumed damnation

Would wait until we passed away.

Now COVID damns our nation,

 

And any portion, supersized,

We don’t intend to share

Could be our ticket on the fast train

To Intensive Care.

 

Of all the sins, in all the world,

From cheats, to criminals,

You’d think the choice of one more chocolate

Would be venial.

 

If He, who everything decides,

Would purge us, like a flood,

You’d think the plump would catch the boat,

With murderers in the mud.

 

But no, no single vice is left–

Not rage, not greed, not sex–

That gets away unpunished.

Turns out, sadly, we are next.

 

Indulge away, indulge away,

But know, the end is near.

We got away with murder.

Now, the hatchet man is here.

 

Copyright 2021 Andrea Ledew

 

Freezers usually hold the prospect of something yummy for me, but not in this short short story:  Ice Don’t Keep.