ReadWritePoem Monthly Challenge: 5 on 1: Day 4

Growing up in a Catholic family meant no meat on Fridays. It seems that about eighty percent of our meals on that night consisted of a sauce my mom would make with some kind of fish. It was sort of like Tuna Wiggle but my mom didn't put peas in and she used a variety of canned seafood. It was pretty simple and we just called it Sauce.


Sauce

2 cups milk
2 tblsp. butter
salt and pepper
2 tblsp. corn starch
2 cans of tuna, and/or shrimp, and/or crabmeat, and/or salmon

1. Pour milk into a sauce pan.
2. Add the butter and salt and pepper
3. Bring to almost a boil.
4. In the mean time, mix the corn starch with ¼ cup of water
5. When the milk is almost boiling, stir in the corn starch mixture
6. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly
7. Add seafood
8. Serve over toast or mashed potatoes with a veggie on the side.

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Sauce

Family love
pours over us
filling in
our nooks
and crannies

sometimes whether
we want it to or not.
Our only telephone
perched on the wall
barely two feet
from my dad’s
place at the table.

When it rang
that Friday night
during supper,
I jumped up to answer.
“Hey, listen” said
my date for that night.
“I’m up at Flint’s
blowing my mind.
You want to meet
me at the dance?”

“If I’m there, I’m there.
If I’m not, I’m not.”
I responded and hung up.

All eyes stared,
all ears perked up.
I hadn’t even been out
with this guy, yet,
and, already, I’d have
to lie to my parents?

They sat there
expecting an explanation.
The phone rang again,
a slight reprieve.
“Hey, listen, you
want to go to the movies
instead? I’ll pick
you up.”

Acceptable.
I relayed that
and heads nodded,
eating resumed,
normal banter
flew back and forth
again.

He met my parents
as they were on their way
out to go bowling,
played a game of cribbage
with my brother,
then we walked
to the theater,
watched The Taming
of the Shrew,
and returned home
to have hot
chocolate with my folks
and sister.

Conversation and smiles
drifted around
like the steam
wisping from our cups.

It was just another
Friday night,
another connection
of family,
another meal
of sauce
spreading it’s comfort.
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And in case you're wondering, the guy liked it so much at our house that we ended up getting married and we'll be celebrating our 38th anniversary in June.

ReadWritePoem Monthly Challenge: 5 on 1: Day 3

Whoopie Pies

Filling

1 cup milk
5 tbls. flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbls. vanilla
1 cup shortening

1. Cook milk and flour over medium heat until it forms a ball and then cool.
2. In a bowl put sugar, vanilla, and shortening. Mix
3. Add to cooked mixture. Cool.

Pies

½ cup cocoa
½ cup hot water
½ cup sour milk
2 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 ¾ cups flour
¼ tsp. salt

1. Mix cocoa and hot water together.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients, mixing well.
3. Spoon onto a greased baking sheet in desired size.
4. Cook for 12 minutes at 350˚.
5. Cool before filling
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Whoopie Pies

Nancy was the middle child
always second best,
bursting at the seams, and wild.

Late for supper, full of guile,
feeling like a guest
even though she was our middle child.

My father’d sit at the table, riled,
“Do you have to be such a pest?
Why are you so wild?”

Nancy just sat there and smiled.
“Why can’t you be like the rest?”
She replied, “Because I’m the middle child.”

And there sat the whoopie pies piled
on a plate with the filling pressed
between the layers, bursting and wild.

ReadWritePoem Monthly Challenge: 5 on 1: Day 2

Graham Cracker Cake

1. First, whip a pint of whipping cream until it starts getting thick.
2. Add about a ½ cup of sugar and keep whipping.
3. Add about 2 tablespoons of powdered chocolate and keep whipping.
4. Then put a graham cracker on a dish and spread some of the whipped cream on it.
5. Continue layering the crackers with the cream until it’s about 3 inches high.
6. Use the rest of the whipped cream to frost the sides and pile the leftover on top.
   
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   Graham Cracker Cake
   
   The building
   of children
   is like erecting
   a Graham Cracker cake
   one careful layer
   at a time.
   
   Our kitchen table
   was round
   and I sat
   next to my dad
   the perfect place
   for the first born
   the one with his blue
   eyes and curls.
   
   Conversation twisted
   in and around
   like the scents
   of the food
   we were rapidly
   devouring.
   
   As a fifth-grader
   I was the expert
   on all things
   and if I didn’t know
   the answer,
   my dad did.
   
   Then Timmy asked
   a question
   and I opened my mouth
   to show off
   that I knew
   the simple
   answer
   
   but my dad
   answered first
   and he was wrong.
   I closed my mouth
   and sat quietly
   my heart
   a crippled bird.
   
   My mom brought
   the dessert
   to the table
   and I noticed
   that it was lopsided
   and crooked.
   
   I ate my piece
   slowly
   and wondered why
   the whipped cream
   tasted a bit sour.

ReadWritePoem Monthly Challenge: 5 on 1

ReadWritePoem is challenging us to write five poems in five days about one subject. This popped into my head because the prompt in one of my classes for journal writing today was "Write about your mother's cooking." I made a list of all the comfort and favorite dishes my mom used to make and that got me to thinking about the emotions associated with them.

First, here's the recipe for Chinese Pie. We grew up eating this about once a month but, when my son was going to school in Florida, a friend of his had never heard of it so it might not be as well known as I thought.

Chinese Pie

1. Peel, dice, and cook about 5 potatoes. When they are soft, mash them with butter and milk.
2. Saute about a quarter cup of onions in olive oil then add a pound of hamburg and saute them together.
3. Open a can of creamed corn.
4. In a casserole dish, layer the meat/onion mixture, the creamed corn, and top with the mashed potatoes.
5. Bake for a half hour or so or until bubbly.

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Chinese Pie

My mother is mashed potatoes,
the cotton batting
of our family,
covering us
like a blanket.

So, on this night
when Nancy
starts laughing
when my brother
is getting hell

our father sends
her outdoors
until she can
control herself.

I face the window
and can see Nancy’s
face as she looks
in at us. She opens
her mouth
filled with corn
and hamburg

and lets it overflow
out onto her chin.
I try to ignore her
but can feel
myself beginning
to laugh. I pick
up my milk

and clamp my mouth
on the rim
but there is Nancy
making faces
in the window. I
guffaw and milk
splatters everywhere.

My dad throws down
his napkin
and retreats
to the living room
and the news.

My mom opens the door
for Nancy. We clean
up the mess. My mom
gives each of us
a hug.

Poetry Train: Essay

Essay

Weekends are parentheses

(I get up late,
wear pj’s all morning,
play games on the computer,
check email posts,
putter around the house,
have a glass of wine
in the middle
of the afternoon,
write poems)

in the paragraphs of my life.

3WW: Incubate, Nightmare, Vanity

I stumble
into the bathroom,
look at my face
in the mirror
above the vanity,
and scream.

This nightmare
of aging
just goes on and on.
I try to smooth
the wrinkles
but they return.

I wish I could take
the tiny eggs
of youth,
incubate them
for sixty years
then watch them hatch

into a new me.
Instead, I avoid
harsh lights
and brush my teeth
in the glow
of the nightlight.

Carry Me Back for the Monday Poetry Train

Carry Me Back….

…to the house
we rented
on Papailoa Drive
in Haliewa, Hawaii
during the winter
of 1992

…to fresh pineapple
chunks waiting
on the cupboard
for the kids
when they got home
from school

…to windows
full of the ocean

…to Erin building
sandcastles on the beach
and Nathan surfing
in the waves

…to liquid sunshine
followed by rainbows

…to footprints
trailing away
in the sand

…to five months
of heaven.