Make Salad. A poem by Lauren Lawler

The politician
says “Use this opportunity to work in your allotments”
and when you return you will have salad!
courgettes wet watercress
It will remind you of Spring. Make salad
from the clothes you haven’t worn
from this can of spaghetti hoops
from your father’s forty-year-old cough
the fumes of his truck
forty years I say stop shaking hands
and clean the tops and remove all labels
Make salads from heavy days
from within a 2km radius is that man
still hitting you? Dance
in your living room. Make salad
with people doing squats
with yoga on YouTube
with Jamie Oliver’s webcam
Make salad with your brother’s money
with Carole Baskin’s dead husband
with your neighbours’ asshole schnauzer
with long lasting milk
Catch up with your life (why don’t you)
I have a friend who keeps saying
“I cannot believe my luck”