when my father ate
his lips became
greasy
with food.
and when he ate
he talked about how
good
the food
was
and that
most other people
didn’t eat
as good
as we
did.
he liked to
sop up
what was left
on his plate
with a piece of
bread,
meanwhile making
appreciative sounds
rather like
half-grunts.
he slurped his
coffee making loud
bubbling
sounds.
then he’d put
the cup
down:
“dessert? is it
jello?”
my mother would
bring it
in a large bowl
and my father would
spoon it
out.
as it plopped
in the dish
the jello made
strange sounds,
almost fart-like
sounds.
then came the
whipped cream,
mounds of it
on the
jello.
“ah! jello and
whipped cream!”
my father sucked the
jello and whipped
cream
off his spoon—
it sounded as if it
was entering a wind
tunnel.
finished with
that
he would wipe his
mouth
with a huge white
napkin,
rubbing hard
in circular
motions,
the napkin almost
hiding his
entire
face.
after that
out came the
Camel
cigarettes.
he’d light one
with a wooden
kitchen match,
then place the
match,
still burning,
onto an
ashtray.
then a
slurp of
coffee, the cup
back down, and a good
drag on the
Camel.
“ah that was a
good
meal!”
moments later
in my bedroom
on my bed
in the dark
the food that I
had eaten
and what I had
seen
was already
making me
ill.
the only good
thing
was
listening to
the crickets
out there,
out there
in another world
I didn’t
live
in.
