Ratatouille: Sonnet for Shelly Bach

When the war ended he would order ratatouille.

Paris 1945. It was cheap

And he could make a meal of it. Healthy

Food, but the word had gunfire in it, the deep

Repetitive roar and rattle of metal, the stammer

Of explosive speech stuck in its own undoing.

The war ended up for some of them in a clamor

Of dreams, he said, dreams of pursuit and pursuing,

Identity on the run from the startle of its own image.

And then? I asked. Then? There is no then