Famine by David Surette

Famine

by David Surette

John Connelly began each school day
by placing six Vanilla Wafers shrouded
in Saran Wrap on the left corner of his desk
with permission to eat them when needed.
At the Immaculate Conception
Grammar School, rules were rules, and eating
outside of lunch and recess was forbidden.
But here was John and his daily packet
of wafers.  Food was precious in those days.
I knew my lunch was a peanut butter
and jelly on Sunbeam and two cookies.
Never more or less. I had never eaten
more than two cookies at a time, ever.
Six was an extravagance beyond thinking.
We gobbled down our lunches
without a word, washed down with slightly
sour half pints of milk.   The Sisters
taught us one of Jesus’ great miracles
was feeding the masses with five loaves
and a few small fish. Maybe the miracle
was Jesus sharing what little He had
opened up others to reveal
their store of food, and when
the sharing was done,
there was still more to eat.
I can’t remember any of us ever sharing,
especially John as he sat content
with his huge cache of cookies.
_______

David R. Surette’s new book of poetry is The Immaculate Conception Mothers’ Club.  He is also the author of  Young Gentlemen’s School, and  Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In. He has been a contributing editor at Salamander, a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, co-host of Poetribe, and a teacher at the Cape Cod Writers’ Conference and the New England Young Writers’ Conference.  He teaches and coaches varsity hockey at East Bridgewater High School.