On Feeding Oneself

“Why don’t you
write?”
she said.

She was my
beloved
literature prof.

In her hand
was a fistful
of papers
with my words
trailing
across them.

“Because I have
to feed my children.”
I said.

I took the papers
from her hand
and ate them.

They weren’t
that good,
anyway.

So I went off
to the salt
mines of
the world.

I fed and
clothed my
children
by the sweat
of my
brow.

In time,
my belly
began to
ache.

The words
were going
to have
to come
out.

I cried to God
“Let me write
else I die!”
like Rachel
to Jacob.

Only Jacob was
not God.
I had gone to
the right
Person.

In time

I began
to tell
people
that
I
wrote.

It was
like
coming
out of
the closet.

Some
of them
still
talk to me.


©Nita Walker Boles