we made a deposit
at our local food bank
524 pounds of groceries
math doesn’t do much
for poetry, but here are
the numbers: they need
112,329 pounds of food
everyday – every day
we had eight ninth grade
boys who unloaded the
truck and then stood on
the scale together
one ton of teenager
who had brought half
their weight in food
hoping to be of help
the woman at the scale
answered their questions
balanced their hope with
the weight of the world
we went back to school
then home for the holidays
she stayed to wait for the
other 111,800 pounds
Peace,
Milton
