March 2022
Sylvia Cavanaugh
cavanaughpoet@gmail.com
Bio Note: I am a Midwestern high school teacher and Poetry Club advisor. My students and I have been actively involved in 100,000 Poets for Change. I serve on the board of the Council for Wisconsin Writers and I am English language editor for Poetry Hall: A Chinese and English Bilingual Journal.

Old Dish

He’s from southern Indiana
my neighbor across the hall
fifty-five and second shift
he came to Wisconsin
found work at the foundry
 
I tend to be shy and avoid 
conversation
but when his fiancée died
from too many opiates
her popping of prescriptions
not always obvious
just his nagging suspicion
 
I made him shepherd’s pie
 
he called his mother to tell her
his mother who remembers
days before pill mills
before the decline
days she danced jitterbug
to the jukebox
rocked hard
rocked fast
to the beat of promised prosperity
 
when he told her about the shepherd’s pie
she said, Now, that’s an old dish.
he said It has everything, too,
meat, vegetables, and potatoes.
Originally published in Wisconsin People and Ideas
©2022 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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