Black Friday, poem by Cindy Veach (MY SWEET WORD Series)

Black Friday
by Cindy Veach

We didn’t wake in the dark
to go stand in line.
We aren’t rushing anywhere.
We know there’s nothing we can buy
that will fix last night’s fight
speed us back to solvency.
So I say let’s eat pie.
Pie for breakfast. Pie for lunch.
Each bite a sweet deposit
without sides.
Give in to the simple needs of the body—
sugar, salt, sex—let’s turn the sheets inside
out. Let’s be the sweetest deal in town.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The poem was written on the occasion of a Black Friday eve marital spat and serves up sweetness as antidote.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cindy Veach’s poems have appeared most recently in The Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, North American Review, and The Human Journal, and work is forthcoming in War, Literature & the Arts, and Chiron Review. She was a finalist for the Ann Stanford Prize, and the recipient of honorable mentions in the Ratner-Ferber-Poet Lore Prize and Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. Her collection, Thimbleful, was the runner up for the 2014 Zone 3 Press First Book Prize. She manages fundraising programs for nonprofit organizations and lives north of Boston on Cape Ann.