Househusband
I cooked cheap, nutritious meals from scratch.
I was there when the kids got home from school
with yogurt, a sandwich, or whole grain cereal.
A Band-Aid. I would walk to the grocery store
and Neal’s Farms Market with a net bag, like
a European hausfrau. When I passed the men who lived
in the bushes behind the Eagle Army-Navy Discount Department Store,
one of them would put his fist up in the Black Power salute, and holler,
“Screed!” Another one, Trash Pile Peter, called me Daddy.
“Something to eat, Daddy?” He meant, “Something to drink?”
Sometimes Owen would bring home barracuda, caught in the surf.
The small ones won’t give you ciguatera poisoning. I made mojo criollo sauce
from oranges off our tree. I cooked arroz con pollo. Black beans and yellow rice.
Barbecued fish, pork, chicken, beef, alligator tail, quail, rock Cornish game hens,
with key limes. Avocado halves. Each half with a BB in it. Pigeon. Robin red-breast.
I used a recipe for rouge-gorge out of Larousse Gastronomique. I took the smaller second bedroom for a writing studio. The boys slept on the sofa and the floor
in the living room. This is the $6 typewriter Brenda bought at Surplus Sales
in
Timex camper watch with an o. d. nylon watchband.
o. d. for olive drab, not outer diameter.
GI for general issue. My GI haircut.