Comfort The aroma filled the kitchen. The steam birthing fog from two silver pots atop the stove. The fog rising to the stainless-steel vacuum in the sky with a few particles escaping to blanket the kitchen with the smell of comfort. One pot boiling with tomato soup, the other with earthy, alphabet pasta. My bowl still hot when it arrives. My spoon swirling all of the letters I have ever known. The same chaos in the soup as in my mind. Could I eat the words that would help me write this poem? It so often feels like alphabet soup is all that resides inside the neurons and synapses that work so hard to make a rhyme. Plunge the spoon and stir and take a bite, hopefully it will taste and sound all right. I never realized words could taste so good. Takes me back to no bills, nobody relying on me, when the world was excitingly unknown yet so knowable. I wonder what it was like to be in the pasta meeting Where “pasta in the shape of letters” was suggested? Was Shakespeare invited? Were the ops leaders wondering what was wrong with elbows and spirals? If I could only have a bowl of alphabet soup right now. Would be more comfort than a soft couch and a warm blanket on an autumn afternoon. Would be the world without awareness of wars or suffering. Would be youth in the age of creaky joints.