“It can only go up from here,”
Mom said.
She’s never home:
picking up shifts,
scraping for tips.
Late nights, early mornings:
to keep rice on the table,
to keep light above the table,
to keep a roof over the table.
But the table cries.
Bare. Alone.
The problems came like a spirit.
They whistled in the background.
Nobody knows the problems.
Everybody sees the impacts.
It never was the table’s fault:
“The general rise of prices,” they called it.
Milk, Milk
2019, 2023
$3.04, $4.09
Tragedy. Sustained decline.
It can only go up from here.
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