Eating Right (Poem)

Eating Right

Indulge in plump grapes,
one for every month

and each for every stroke
of the clock at midnight.

It's how the Spanish tell
their new New Year is

going to be sweet or sour.
Set your Austrian table

with little marzipan pigs
corralled in fine Bavarian

china. Secret silvered scales
of a single carp in a German

wallet and, please, don't
forget to convert your euros

to dollars. Suck Soba noodles
into your Chinese mouth,

unbroken, and a long, long life
imagine. In America, fill pots

with 365 black-eyed peas,
white beans Grandma calls

pennies with a pupil's eye
that'll swell to help you watch

how much you spend. Cook
them good till they're good

and hoppin'. Tuck in sides
of greenbacks — mustard,

turnip, collard, chard
no difference makes, all be

the color of hope — thick
stewed tomatoes for health,

and wedges of cornbread golden
-browned. Got rice? Season it

with a bit of pork and top it
with a spoon of southern chow

-chow to spice up what's boiled,
baked, and smoked. End sweet.

Your treat: Italian almond cake
shaped to snake. Take but a bite

to shed the past you'll leave
behind. But don't count on this

eating right for life for luck
and riches. Grandma always says

full bellies of beans get soft;
success don't wait to find you.

© 2013 Maureen E. Doallas