Damages

Sometimes we’d sit around the kitchen
table drinking our milk and eating snap

peas with our flank steak dressed
in truffle mushroom sauce,

discussing wrongdoings between
bites of popovers. This was no place

for tall tales or hilarity. This was
the kind of talk that ate through

dreams like a beetle on a willow
leaf. Legal jargon thrown about

between sips of purity and well
done beef and as I recall one debate

about a girl’s puppy who gnawed through
a pair of her father’s brand new Loafers…

how after weeks of bad behavior
he told his daughter to

take that dog to the mustard fields
and shoot him with my rifle─

how she unlocked the gun, and shot
herself instead. I never could manage

a worthy comment. I just sat
in silence and pondered the penalty

of refusing to polish my father’s alligator shoes.

Back in the Day

I’d like to straddle that mechanical
pony again. The one outside Thrifty’s
five-and- dime for the nickel thrill
of being tipped to and fro in the perfunctory
life of a five-year-old. My mother near
the reins, hair coifed, nails shining
fuchsia, wearing her best Audrey Hepburn
dress, me in my black Mary Janes,
white anklets with French lace trim,
curls pulled half-up, ringlets skimming
bony shoulders and pinafore
straps, pockets full of daydreams,
unknowing how much can change
when the ride finally ends and no one's
there to lift you off that motorized
horse, place you neatly in the basket
again, squeaky casters rolling steadily
past the checkout line.