My husband broke the broccoli
it doesn’t look good
The chorus begins
Do not infect the rest of the refrigerator
Do not let the dirt or the mold
crowd the carrots, spoil the spinach.
There are lots of voices in this household –
the cat, the old stuffed animals
the photograph of us when we were young
policing us, Did you wash your hands?
We are on alert, disinfecting while we
unwrap a package, slit open groceries
shielding each other from threats
behind these walls of new rules
within these bodies of love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and medical science teacher in Sacramento, CA. She believes strongly in helping students use both the pen and community activism to make a difference in their community. Deborah has been published in the American River Literary Review, Under the Gum Tree, the SPC Tule Review, and the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher. She lives in Sacramento with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.