Find Dining Poem by Ferdinand L Quintos

She gurgles with water scooped from a jar
where mosquitoes have laid their eggs in the night,
she winces with pain as the stale water enters
the cavities of what remains of her teeth,

she cups the remaining water with her hand,
vigorously rubs on her prematurely-wrinkled face
and her neck, shaking off the softened caked dirt,
feeling herself acclimatized to the coldness outside,

she grabs a wire hook and a tattered jute bag
and rushes out trusting to God her children's safety
a gust of wind and a spear of early morning sunlight
slapped her face, momentarily disorienting her,

she half-runs, half-walks to the mound of trash,
hooking at the some now on the verge of rotting
she looks for and takes whatever thing seems of value,
her sack filled to the brim she hauls it to the junk shop,

clumsily putting her harvest on the beaten scales,
the buyer, mumbling strange words, the buyer pays her,
pittance, though, she accepted the valuation of her find,
she rushed off to buy food so her children could dine.