Food Storage

Your disdain releases a dozen tapeworms.
You, weary of finding yet
another expired package on our shelves,
cheese mold on its way to science fiction,
a spatula whispering rust.
We joke, you scowl.
You lean into our sauce jars with bloodhound intensity.
We lean into our milk carton with hopes for happily ever after.
Sugary excuses never fill you.
Our cartoons on the fridge never close to witty.
We, your Greek tragedy, guilty of habitual gluten and dairy
and chronic inattention.
You, our oldest and youngest,
whose tender slumber we carried from the car seat,
whose merry cackles jumped into our arms from behind bushes,
who relished his soupy goopy Lucky Charms and mashed potato towers.
Now it’s the sour simmer of your visits,
your squall and snipe for our long-gone, best-if-used-bys.
You, the relentless garbage disposal autocrat at our sink.
We, the family dinners with thorns in the pudding.
Then a decade-old can of tomato paste
at the back of our pantry
bursts open its blood along the seam,
and absolution leaves the building.

RIKKI SANTER

Rikki Santer’s collection Resurrection Letter was grand prize shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Shepherd’s Hour won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. In 2023, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year and in 2026 she will be the Artist-in-Residence at the Fran Ryan Center in Columbus, Ohio. Please contact her through her website, rikkisanter.com.