Breakfast Dishes
Every day we woke up hungry.
We ate our little bowls of freedom
At the breakfast table.
Then Momma washed the breakfast dishes.
In the summer,
Momma grew maters and beets.
She stooped in earnest to keep us fed.
We sopped our shame with bread.
Yellow dishes lay in the sink.
We lived those years without thinking
About leaving the little white house.
The check came once a month.
We pinched our pennies carefully.
The house stood dressed in red shutters
On a street that no one cared about.
Time wore a yellow calm.
Momma’s dishes lay in the sink.
In the winter,
We huddled closer to the stove.
Steam grew on the windows,
Fried taters and a pot of beans.
Yellow dishes rattled in the sink.
On the back porch, thin cats waited
For a bite of something worth eating.
They cried at the screen door
While Momma washed the breakfast dishes.
At supper time,
We ate our plates of charity,
Fried bologna and government cheese
With a false sense of peace.
Every night we went to bed hungry.
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