(*Comic episodes during war exist
      to lessen the tension and should be
      an essential part of the tragedy.)

that remembering Bugs Bunny
frying a photo of a fish looked
tastier than Chaplin cooking a shoe

something grandmother had told me
she had done during wwii, as did
my mother with a belt after the war:

that getting a humanitarian aid can
of mackerel with the label in Arabic
was as puzzling as its expiration date:

that going through a bombed out
apartment in search of food could be
like being at a market-place on friday:

that with so little food came
such a great need to go to the bathroom
to relieve nature of nothing natural:

that finding two boxes of stay free
in the kitchen cabinet of a seventy
year old dead woman was a revelation

that those pads exchanged for a potato
and two stale crackers proved nothing
already useless was beyond usable:

that trading a candle for a stand-up sex
in the old austro-hungarian armoire
would make the mind forget about the stomach:

that sitting at the naked table in a motel
when everything was over would have
me vomit air at the very sight of food….