Tonight's Poet Corner: Cultural Awareness: Case Study

Cultural Awareness: Case Study
by Belinda Roddie

Almost like a dream
to be eating a Denver omelet
in Chicago where the wind pushes
sweet odors into our noses.

The mincemeat of Saturday
is more dried fruit than beef,
more spirits than venison, more
flavor than grief. It is chopped
and distilled and made edible
by an expert's shaky hands.

Corn on the cob at the neighbor's
house; cold lager in lieu of hot water.
Tea is brewed out of pots with faces,
and they smile at us from the stove top,
bright red, missing teeth, and cackling.
Practical jokes make the children

cry more than laugh, and the fathers
ho-hum about this next generation
no longer having a savory sense of humor.
The mothers are silent. They drink more
beer individually than the men combined.

I am full of diced ham and green
peppers and spite. I write letters
on napkins to send to my wife. She is
still in dead Tuscon with her mistress.

Fever dreams pick up in the gusts
of Chicago. Misplaced and obscene,
but I'm free to say what I please
over this Denver omelet at a diner
with letters missing from its name like
rotten teeth. I am the suet in the mincemeat.
Is it still Saturday?