Linda Leedy Schneider

for Clara Breuker 1894-1918

A pot of spaghetti sauce simmers.
Streams run like veins
down the steamy kitchen window.
Her hands stained gray,
a girl pulls at pieces of yesterday’s paper,
shreds the words of war,
tears them to confetti
to bless the peace parade tomorrow.
The war to end all wars is over,
but soldiers will bring back Spanish influenza
which will make her mother
now adding pasta to a boiling pot
one of the last casualties of that war.