I’m the meat in the sandwich

The peanut butter on the bread

This is the thought that sprang in my head

As I was walking in my neighborhood I saw so many children

And then the neighbor behind me had one on the ground and one strapped to her bosom

She wore stripped leggings and her hair in a messy bun

The kids screamed, one rattled the gate

I thought that life can’t be fun

The Navy guy from around the corner also had an infant taped to his chest

His wife was walking beside him – she looked like she had nothing left

These counterparts, my age

Youngish faces

I squeezed through the houses on my block

Around the corner past the sidewalk chalk

My mother-in-law’s knees ache

My father-in-law coughs and can’t catch a break

My sister bleeds

My mother says I need a child

I think of her swollen knuckles and brittle bones

A text comes through as I walk home

My friend from grade school is pregnant with her fourth

I smell the honeysuckle in the park

Think of every spring and how life runs its course

The homeless man in the tent was once somebody’s

I watch the suburban SUVs unload their groceries

Kids in baseball uniforms

While the mentally ill woman across the street talks to herself like it’s the norm

Where’s her family

There’s no psychiatrist to help her

She walks up to the man in the park for some shelter

As I walk home the houses seem to get closer together

The lines between the mowed and unmanicured lawns blur

Just like peanut butter and jelly between two pieces of bread

I think of all the things my mother and other people have said

Sometimes I feel like the sandwich filling

Sometimes I feel like the sandwich maker

Maybe I’m both

Either way, they’re both thrilling

The old are fading, the new in the making, the in-betweens surviving

But like moldy bread, the reality is we’re all dying, dear

Right now I must focus on feeding the ones who are here