Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty

or “Chicken Salad After All”

They say that Lewis Carroll coined the term “portmanteau”
after a double-sided suitcase of the same name.
Two halves crammed together, making up a whole.

I resist the worn-out cliché, something about the best of both worlds.

So often the domain of the television commercial:
the pitchman, the shill, the jingle; shamelessly combining car and holiday together.
“Hondadays” and “Toytathons” clutter the calendar and mind.
Ceaseless noise without meaning.

It seems unsatisfying to me.
Just like mixing and matching those tiny sandwich triangles at a church luncheon.
An offering of fellowship and refreshment; of mayo and salvation.

Here three types of egg salad face off with at least four takes on tuna fish.

The phoned-in PBJ made with sweatshop peanut butter.
Some flavorless off-brand whose visage my pantry would shame.

Not to mention everyone’s favorite, the sinfully salty deviled ham.
The kind they never get at home.

Sandwiches, bodily broken and reassembled.
Frankenstein’s take on a crust of bread.

This cacophony of smell is familiar as it swirls beneath the sweet-sharp
citrus notes of the orange sherbet. Frothing pastel glaciers soften and melt
as they float atop the fizzy tang of soda-spiked fruit punch.
A million tiny bubbles dance and sing amid the din and laughter of the flock.

Every offering another step in the faithful procession toward the final course. 

The steaming cups of coffee congregating around the alpha and the omega,
bathed in the steady red glow of the almighty percolator.

How did the once quiet service place transform into this congenial space?
It’s purpose blended in some powerful way…
what was the word again?

Now that I think about it, that last one just might have been chicken salad after all.

by D. Ryan Lafferty

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