217/365

exhausted by the burden of convenience.
all things instant. produced. packaged.
empty.
delivered right to your door.
made to order.
just add water.

image: (saffron with sugar granules for resistance
in a mortar and pestle. slowly.
tender attention to the familiar aroma.
letting it seep into the water,
then the boiling sugar syrup and rose water.)

image: (risen dough, punched down and floured.
like a baby’s thigh powdered and pliant.
rolled and boiled and baked.)

what use is another privileged bourgeois
poem in all this noise?
complaining about convenience of all things.

image: (a girl aged twelve walking barefoot
on hot red gravel, a thorny acacia in the distance,
a baby on her back and a yellow gerry can
on her head, filled with twenty gallons of dirty water.
kilometres to go yet, to reach home.)

exhausted by the burden of.