The winter
I was sixteen,
our freezer
was more empty than full.
I remember
wishing that freezer
was magic, that
every time I opened it,
our dinner for the next
five nights would appear.
Instead of wishing
for a car
or a new cell phone,
I wished for chicken breasts,
chicken nuggets,
frozen pizzas,
pork chops,
frozen peas,
rib-eye steaks,
frozen strawberries,
and a ready-to-bake apple pie,
complete with vanilla ice cream.
But, there was no magic freezer,
just the local food bank,
those peas and chicken,
that middlin magic
giving
exactly what we needed.
