Linda Studley

Food Fear 3

The scarlet letter of shame today
is not an “A”.
It’s the “S” painted on the shaker of salt
that’s at fault.

The salt shaker top is littered with holes,
it’s hard to control
the amount of salt that hits your food
and you overdo

because salt is teeny and hard to see,
it’s pale and wee.
Not like pepper that is easy to see
and makes you sneeze.

Though pepper lives in a shaker too
the holes are few.
And though pepper is safer than salt they say
this is the way

we traditionally think our seasonings should be
but it seems
pepper should be in the shaker marked “S”
(for ‘Safe’, I guess.)

And salt should be kept in the one marked “P”
’cause it seems to me,
since we know too much salt is  bad for us –
“P” for ‘Perilous’.

#248