Two Poems

by Natalie Gates

The Good Pasta

Despite the news, she bought the good pasta.
She wanted something to look forward to while
mangled strangers and malicious snakes
threaten to bite outside.
You know, while the headlines try to pull her
into their cortisol shower.

She rips open the plastic shield
plastered to the ground pork and
lets it hit the cast iron with a
satisfying thud.

Slowly, slowly the cold black metal warms and
begins to sear the flesh,
fat sizzling into a pool of guilty pleasure.

In goes the tomato sauce,
the meat and the fruit becoming one decadent slop.

Finally, the good pasta. The fresh, expensive stuff from the artisan shop.
Humble bundles of wheat and egg,
now drenched in a crimson bath.
A hand on her hip, a hand on the cast iron,
she admires her creation and takes a hungry bite.
Burns her tongue.

It doesn’t matter.
It’s worth it for the good pasta.

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Horses

Horses huddle on the last patch of grass not graced with snow
Their silent breath sending clouds across the field,
like men and women sharing cigarettes as they consider the cold.

Tiny icicles form on eyelashes, long and thick
Dense manes, frosted and stiff
The street out front is quiet, and I wonder
where everybody is.

Are the horses lonely or content in their cause?
Do they long for spring’s chatter?
Or do they welcome winter’s pause?