Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Brief History of the Sandwich

1.

For liberation—
A cessation of suffering and escape.
Spilled mortar glad not to be
between large pyramid stones.
Hosting deaths and receiving plagues.
Such masonry, gloriously baking in the hot sun,
cracking under heat and pressure,
you become weathered.

Ageless, sagely and wise
existing before and after Christ himself.
One entity, but still
made of many: The egg is:
yolk, egg white, and shell.
More often than not, it is more
than just a trinity.

2.

Come those who are less fortunate
And you dogs can come, too.
Stale, yet soaking in juices
this one is for you.
Throw him the trencher,
give the dog a bone.
But, no I don’t count
those as alms.

London with its beef steak clubs,
Gamblers and denizens alike
Gather and watch
Montagu, the 4th Earl of,
eat with one hand, while the other hand
continues to lose money—
An overwhelming idea leading to wild
shouts and gesticulations.




3.

Wedged between two ivory keys
sharps, flats, sounds of
pentatonic scales are heard
in the black of an opium den.
Just as sudden chords,
filled between spaces of silence
are heard somewhere on
57th and Seventh Avenue.

What was once part of the whole
has been sliced and sold out.
Prepackaged, boxed into
corny comic strips and
Webster’s New World Dictionary.
“Why have you forsaken me, Dagwood.”
With greedy eyes and hasty devouring he said,
“I haven’t time to waste.”

4.

The child of two parents—
Divorcing and separating.
Forced to decide, to rely on one.
She wants both but knows
empty vessels can contain
nothing and everything at the same time.
Like water, forms are meaningless—
It evolves, intertwining with its surroundings.

A mother runs out, frantically waving
and calling out to her son,
Billy, who forgot a brown
paper bag slumped in the corner
of the linoleum kitchen counter,
but had found its way in the hands of the mother.
“It’s your favorite, PB & J.”
It was the 30’s, he was restless.

His mother was interfering too much,
forcing him in between two places
layers untold raveling into
separate pieces, couldn’t do as he pleased.
She had lied and it was the Great Depression.
It was only a peanut butter sandwich
and Billy hated how it always
stuck to the roof of his mouth.

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