Twelve ounces tortellini in boiling water
is supposed to be my humane dining option
since the meatpackers are trying to kill us all,
the animals, the workers, my balding grandmother.
Except that I can’t help talking to the food,
say hello, ask the little noodles how the family is doing:
Rotina, Manicotta, Macarono.
Once I decided they really could hear me, I told them.
“You’ll never see your cousins again.”
I should start out by saying
that the trees look like a system of veins
and that it’s winter, obviously.
I notice this because the eastern wall
of my tiny apartment is a giant window
that lets the sun into my room every morning
to rip the blanket from me and get me to school on time.
Tonight I look out of my window as a skeptic
because the author of my geology textbook
thinks that volcanoes are made out of red paper.
And if the experts can believe such ridiculous things,
what right do I have to believe in anything?
The trees are not made of paper, fools!
they are made of wood,
and paper is made of them.
