The Biting Dance

Cookies and multivitamins
For breakfast—there’s no cereal
On the shelf, no eggs in the fridge,
But there are leftover cookies,

A little stale. They’ll have to do.
Stores will open later—neither
You nor the supply chain is yet
Completely broke. Somewhere, children

Are drinking puddled rainwater.
Herodotus noted victims
Of a siege held thousands of years
Ago boiled leather for their meals.

Bodies keep going while they can,
And then fuel others once they can’t.
Be glad for your stale cookies, kid.
Every bite’s a step in the dance.