Tonight's Poet Corner: Barbecue Brawl

Barbecue Brawl
by Belinda Roddie

A flip-out at a cook-out with a high turn-out
sends the patties flying like frisbees and
the sausages spiraling like the footballs at
the Super Bowl. One drunk bastard gets

a faceful of hot spatula, and soon, it's an
all-out, full-out coliseum scene where even
the gladiators would cast down their tridents
in confusion and disgust. The girls kick off their

flip-flops and use them as slapping bludgeons
against the bellowing beasts of brothers and
boyfriends. The fathers and uncles squirt
condiments into each others' eyes. The mothers

don't cry over the mess because they're fighting, too,
striking at throats with long nails and folded paper
plates because no one actually wants to wield a sharp
weapon. And throughout the melee, I sit on my stained

and rusty lawn chair, quietly munching
on an overcooked mish-mash of blackened beef
with just the right amount of ketchup.