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was the Dictionary.com ‚Word of the Day‛ waiting for me in my Inbox. Before opening the e-mail to get the definition, I thought of my family’s restaurant back home: Spoonem’s. But ‚spoonerism‛ has nothing to do with eggs over easy or corned beef hash, even less to do with me framed behind that little square window where sticky plates were passed: and my mind unconcerned with making clean. The word didn’t make me think of an inverted phrase, or a couple of misfired consonants either–– Only could remember that one waitress, the little windows between the buttons of her tight white shirt, and those tig ‘ol bitties

 

fter work, Sunday dinners were at Mema’s house. Mema could make a meal out of anything. No leftover, nor rind, couldn’t four — be recycled, reanimated burners getting red, things bubbling things steaming like her stove was Pittsburg. Mema was from an old country where sometimes sustenance was milked from one eggplant for eight bowls. She taught me to eat all my food because we were lucky to have it. I’d use a slice of bread to wipe my plate clean.

 

                   For Sara

 

I make them naked. I buck the shrimp.
I bare them all one by one. Disrobe, undress
the decapods. I take a pairing knife and slit
a long pocket down the back of the jacket,
like a pleat, and slide my fingertips into the coat
to peel it off. I stark the shrimp, denude before
deveining, husk the crustaceans like lollipop
wrappers. Each one reduced, divested, doffed
suited. - of their drogue duds. They got birthday
— They got unveiled, for Fra Diavolo, for you
I make them singe. I sizzle the shrimp. I dress
them up. Pop garlic out of its silk socks, dice.
I doll up the decapods: put on pepper flakes like
lace, onions, dollop with tomato/paste, drizzle with salt,
fire. I wardrobe them, attire each one by one, for you.
Because without you: just plain pasta plain sauce - shrimp
left at the bottom of the sea in their nautical knee-
highs, their see-through raincoats, transparent fig leaves.

 

 

In a past life, I was a chicken
cutlet. In a past life, I was a Hershey’s
chocolate bar. In a past life harvested,
boiled, and rolled inside a grape leaf.
I was a rack of lamb, I was a half pound
of strawberries, was string beans
in a Mason jar. In a past life, I was 196 chickpeas
struggling to stay together. I was ground
to flour, turned to batter, and fried.
In this past life, I evolved into a square
you were only two — of panelle, and you
slices of bread in the loaf, the same two slices
a paesano topped with provolone
and wrapped around me.

 

 

If you blindfolded a dozen bankers’ kids
ting and had them listen to that sound of
tap tapping I heard this morning ting
they may say — on my way to work
it’s sword fighting, or call it hammer on anvil,
closer or a tinny dinner bell (which is
I’d say), and if you getting warmer I’d tell them,
blindfolded me and played the song
, editing a poem of the calculator, I might hear
and I’d probably be wrong too, like the bankers’ kids,
but the sound of that tap tapping that plumed
miss diner - or - from the open door of some hit
today was familiar, (familiar as cranking gears
and in it I heard my father — to a machinist’s son)
scripting his morning Morse code, turning over
pancakes, catalyzing scrambled eggs with the tap
of his metal spatula on that hot metal grill.